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In the Company of Bees
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by Tammy Lipke
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| For those intimidated by buzzing insects, let me assure you, bees are fascinating.
They fly over great distances (proportionally speaking), with perfect navigational skills. When one bee finds a source of food for the colony, she does a special "dance" in order to communicate it to the rest of the hive. She is also able, through her movements, to tell the others exactly how to get there!
Each bee, and each type of bee in the group, has a specific function, and the prosperity of the whole depends on each to do its part. Let's visit with a local beekeeper to find out more.
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Bob Koch with the complete hive, preparing to remove honey
All photos courtesy of Bob and Sally Koch
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| I spoke to Bob Koch, a family friend, who is a beekeeper from Smithers. The first thing I wanted to know is: where do all these bees come from?
Bob said that most of the domesticated bees in BC are imported from Australia or New Zealand. He also mentioned that most of the domestic bees available for sale in BC have mites, harmless to people, but dangerous to the bee population. Queen bees usually come from out-of-country, although local beekeepers have been encouraged to raise their own queen bees to avoid the mite problem.
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Shaking bees off of individual frames
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To prepare for the arrival of bees, Bob builds short, square boxes called "supers." Each super will hold 10 wire frames, complete with beeswax to save building time for the bees .
The bees build cells in the frames. They will lay eggs in certain cells and fill other cells with honey, which is food for newly-hatched bees.
A colony, or hive, will consist of at least 3 or 4 supers. The bottom two supers in a stack will house the queen and the eggs, and the remainders will store honey.
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