Beekeeping guide
Basic Bee Information
The key to getting into beekeeping is understanding the bees. There are three types of bees found in a bee colony, and each has their own specific role to fulfill.
The most abundant type of bee in each colony is the Worker bee. This is a female bee that is incapable of reproduction and has tasks both inside the hive and out. These tasks include 'housekeeping' which takes place for the first two weeks of a workers' life. Housekeeping involves repairing damaged sections of the hive, clearing away bee carcasses, and feeding the queen with royal jelly which only bees of less than ten days old can make because they have a special secretion from their mandibles at that age. After two weeks, worker bees can fly and so are sent out to collect nectar and pollen. After another two weeks of collecting worker bees are put on guard duty, protecting the entrance to the hive from intruders
Drone bees are males whose only job is to breed with the queen. They are only allowed in the hive if they will mate with the queen, and then they are sent out. No drones live permanently in a bee colony and workers keep them out of the hives in the autumn so they die each winter. Drones do not have the necessary tools to collect pollen or nectar and are therefore useless apart from their breeding capabilities.
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