ENVS 2210 Lecture Notes - 2018 Lecture 5 - Early Summer, Beekeeping, Eugenius Warming
20 Sep 2018
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Document Summary
The annual cycle of a honey bee colony (outline) The colony and the nest: social unit composed of thousands of worker bees, drones and a queen living together in a hive or other dwelling. Natural hives: hollow spaces that provide them shelter from the weather and from predators. Human-made hives: serve same purpose and have movable frames, allowing management. The nest: bees build combs to rear brood and to store food. Combs built in parallel, hanging vertically from the top part of the nest and separated by 9 mm. Comb: array of hexagonal cells with horizontal orientation and slightly angled upwards. Cells: bees build three types of cells: 1) worker cells, 2) drone cells, and 3) queen cells. Brood reared in centre of combs (33-35 c). Food reserves stored at the periphery of brood. The population and activities of colony members vary with the seasons and with the availability of food resources.
