>Queen
>Worker
>Drone
The Queen bee lays all of the eggs to make new bees. The queen bee is capable of laying 1500+ eggs a day. There is only one queen per colony of bees, normally. She produces a scent called pheromone which helps hold a colony of bees together. She keeps unity within the colony.
The Worker is the exactly that, a worker. The worker when young, spends it's first 19 days in the hive doing hive duties. These entail, drawing/building wax cells, feeding the queen, feeding the young larve before they hatch into bees, storing nectar as honey, packing pollen into cells. When the worker is 20 days old, she becomes a forager and gathers pollen and nectar for the survival of the colony. There can be anywhere from a few thousand to 60,000 per colony depending on your management style.
The Drone is the male bee. He is used for the mating of queen bees only. Other than that, he just lays around the hive and consumes honey. There can be anywhere from 100 to a couple thousand per colony, depending on circumstances.
Feral - wild honey bees. (ones that nature provided from the beginning and
have adapted to our environment). Feral honey bees live in hollow trees, old buildings,
etc...
Domestic- ones that we have housed and genetically altered to achieve
better genetic traits.
Both are suitable for housing, in our hives, for honey production and/or pollination
services.
The most popular hive in use in America, probably worldwide, is the Langstroth hive.
It is a simple design, consisting of: a bottom board, a brood box, frames with wax foundation or comb, and a cover. To obtain bees, one can get them from a local beekeeper, order them through the mail, or catch a swarm. We install the bees into one of our manmade hives and the bees draw the wax comb out for: raising bees, storing pollen, and storing honey. We raise bees for honey, for pollination and for fun. Honey bees raise new young bees in the springtime to increase their population for the nectar / honey flow which they will gather and
store in our hives as honey. Then careful to leave the bees enough honey for their needs, we then take the surplus honey off for ourselves and put into containers to sale or consume ourselves. If you haven't tried some good ole farm raised local honey, you don't know what you are missing.
January - The weathers cold. Bees stay in a tight cluster, consuming very little honey,
not leaving the hive.
February - The weathers warming a little. The queen starts laying more eggs. The bees
still keeping a tight cluster. On a warm day workers fly short distances from the hive.
March - The weathers warmer and a little pollen is available. More bees leave the hive on warm days collecting the available pollen to start raising more bees. The queen now is laying good. Laying lots of eggs. Colony size is starting to increase. Replacing a lot of the bees that died off during the winter.
April - Vegetation starts blooming and pollen is high. The young bees are requiring lots of pollen and nectar, using up lots of last years surplus honey. The workers are working like crazy. The queen is laying at near maximum. Colony size is exploding now with lots of young bees. A colony left unattended usually swarms around this time.
May - Hope you already have the supers on! If you have managed your bees well and the bees have not swarmed, you should have an enourmous amount of worker bees
gathering nectar by the pounds. Filling up those supers. Stay ahead of them and keep
plenty of supers on for lots of good sweet honey. In a good year, if you have managed your colony well, you can expect 50-100+ pounds of surplus honey. That's not including
the 50-70 lbs. you will leave for the bees, for winter surplus.
June - Intermediate time. Bees finishing up with the spring honey flow. Getting ready for
the sourwood flow at the end of June.
July - Bees are working the sourwood blooms. Sourwood honey is the most sought after honey in our area. It is a light coloured honey and has a taste you will love.
August - Nectar/Honey flow is over. Time to harvest the surplus honey. Make sure you
leave enough surplus honey for the bees to get through the winter. A single deep brood
box of bees requires 50-60 pounds of honey to get through the winter. A double deep brood box of bees need 70-80 pounds to get through the winter.
September - Bees making preparations for winter. Gathering the last of the fall honey.
October - Weathers cooling. The queen's egg laying has almost stopped.
November - Weathers cooling more, days are getting shorter. Bees start to form a cluster. December - Weathers colder. Bees are in a tight cluster.
They are waiting for spring, which is just right around the corner.