The Sad Fate of the Drone

The following story about the fate of drone, the only male in the hive comes word for word from a wonderful, little book called "The Life of the Bee".  This was written by Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian playwright who was also a beekeeper.  It is a quirky, poetic book that deals more with the philosophy than the science of the hive.  In fact, the name of my honey, Waxen City comes from this lovely book.   It was written in 1901.  My copy is 1935 re-print found by my daughter in a second hand book store here in London.

THE MASSACRE OF THE MALES

If skies remain clear, the air warm, and pollen and nectar abound in the flowers, the workers through a kind of forgetful indulgence, or over-scrupulous prudence perhaps, will for a short time longer endure the importunate, disastrous presence of the males.  These comport themselves in the hive as did Penelope's suitors in the house Ulysses.  Indelicate and wasteful, sleek and corpulent, fully content with their idle existence as honorary lovers, they feast and carouse, throng the alleys, obstruct the passages, and hinder the work; jostling and jostled, fatuously pompous, swelled with foolish, good-natured contempt; harbouring never a suspicion of the deep and calculating scorn wherewith the workers regard them, of the constantly growing hatred to which they give rise, or of the destiny that awaits them.  For their pleasant slumbers they select the snuggest corners of the hive; then, rising carelessly, they flock to the open cells where the honey smells sweetest, and soil with their excrements the combs they frequent.  The patient workers, their eyes steadily fixed on the future, will silently set things right.  From noon till three, when the purple country trembles in blissful lassitude beneath the invincible gaze of a July or August sun, the drones will appear on the threshold.  They have a helmet made of enormous black pearls, two lofty, quivering plumes, a doublet of iridescent, yellowish velvet, an heroic turf, and a fourfold mantle, translucent and rigid.  They create a prodigious stir, brush the sentry aside, overturn the cleaners, and collide with the foragers as these return, laden with their humble spoil.  They have the busy air, the extravagant, contemptuous gait of indispensable gods who should be simultaneously venturing towards some destiny unknown to the vulgar.  One by one they sail off into space, irresistible, glorious, and tranquilly make for the nearest flowers, where they sleep till the afternoon freshness awake them.  Then, with the same majestic pomp, and still overflowing with magnificent schemes, they return to the hive, go straight to the cells, plunge their head to the neck in the vats of honey, and fill themselves tight as a drum to repair their exhausted strength; whereupon, with heavy steps, they go forth to meet the good, dreamless, and careless slumber that shall fold them in its embrace till the time for the next repast.

But the patience of the bees is not equal to that of men.  One morning the long-expected word of command goes through the hive; and the peaceful workers turn into judges and executioners.  Whence this word issues we know not; it would seem to emanate suddenly from the cold, deliberate, indignation of the workers; and no soooner has it been uttered than every heart throbs with it, inspired with the genius of the unanimous republic.  One part of the people renounce their foraging duties to devote themselve to the work of justice.  The great idle drones, asleep in unconscious groups on the melliferous walls, are rudely torn from their slumbers by an army of wrathful virgins.  They wake, in pious wonder; they cannot believe their eyes; and their asonishment struggles through their sloth as a moonbeam through marshy water.  They stare amazedly round them, convinced that they must be victims of some mistake; and the mother-idea of their life being first to assert itself in their dull brain, they take a step towards the vats of honey to seek comfort there.  But ended for them are the days of May honey, the wine-flower of lime-trees and fragrant ambrosia of thyme and sage, of marjoram and white clover.  Where the path once lay open to the kindly, abundant reservoirs, that so invitingly offered their waxen and sugary mouths, there stands now a burning-bush all alive with poisonous, bristling stings.  The atmosphere of the city is changed; in lieu of the friendly perfume of honey the acrid odour of poison prevails; thousands of tiny drops glisten at the end of the stingers and diffuse rancour and hatred.  Before the bewildered parasites are able to realize that the happy laws of the city have crumbled, dragging down in most inconceivable fashion their own plentiful destiny, each one is assailed by three or four envoys of justice; and these vigorously proceed to cut off his wings, saw through the petiole that connects the abdomen with the thorax, amputate the feverish antennae, and seek and opening between the rings of his cuirass through which to pass their sword.  No defence is attempted by the enormous, but unarmed, creatures; they try to escape, or oppose their mere bulk to the blows that rain down upon them.  ...And, in a very brief space, their appearance becomes so deplorable...the wings of the wretched creatures are torn, their antennae bitten, the segments of their legs wrenched off; and their magnificent eyes, mirrors once of the exuberant flowers, flashing back the blue light and the innocent pride of summer, now softened by suffering, reflect only the anguish and distress of their end.  Some succumb to their wounds, and are at once borne away to distant cemeteries by two or three of their executioners.  Others, whose injuries are less, succeed in sheltering themselves in some corner, where they lie, all huddled together, surrounded by an inexorable guard, until they perish of want.  Many will reach the door and escape into space, dragging their adversaries with them; but, towards evening, impelled by hunger and cold, they return in crowds to the entrance of the hive to beg for shelter.  But there they encounter another pitiless guard.  The next morning, before setting forth on their journey, the workers will clear the threshold, strewn with the corpses of the useless giants; and all recollections of the idle race disappear till the following spring.

In very many colonies of the apiary this massacre will often take place on the same day.  The richest, best-governed hive will give the signal, to be followed, some days after, by the little and less prosperous republics.  Only the poorest, weakest colonies--those whose mother is very old and almost sterile--will preserve their males till the approach of winter, so as not to abandon the hope of procuring the impregnation of the virgin queen they await, and who may yet be born.  Inevitable misery follows; and all the tribe--mother, parasites, workers--collect in hungry and closely intertwined group, who perish in silence before the first snows arrive, in the obscurity of the hive."


I hope you enjoyed this missive a little more than the simple: "the drone gets booted out of the hive in fall"!

My very own extractor!

September 2011

My extractor arrived in all its glory!  A beautiful stainless steel extractor for two frames at a time...no motor... just a geared hand crank that runs like butter.

Two frame extractor with bucket/strainer

I needed to see if there was any honey available so I could use this lovely piece of machinery.  Queen Elizabeth had 8 fully capped frames in the top box.  The third box had 10 fully capped frames for winter so I felt fine taking 8 frames to extract.  I had to move quickly as the wasps were attracted to the sweet smell of the honey.  The beeyard smells strong right now.  The nectar that the bees are collecting is mostly from golden rod.  

I used the brush to get the bees off the frames but they were less gentle this time.  I think the frenzy of getting ready for winter is upon them.  After I took the frames I got my gear off...have I mentioned how hot the gear is?  Then I went back to the hives to chase some of the wasps away.  While I was doing this,  a honey bee got caught in my hair.  I tried to shake it out but it panicked and ended up stinging me on the head.  My first bee sting!   I scraped my head right away to get the stinger out so it didn't continue to pump venom into me.  I'm sorry that the honey bee had to lose its life like that.  But now I know that I am not allergic to bee stings!  Silver lining...and I can finally say that I have been stung...and yes, it hurt.

Smoking the bees

Brushing the bees from the frame

I used some of our coolers to store the frames in...word of advice to any new beekeepers:  Do not use your coolers.  The propolis from the frames stuck to the plastic sides and though I was able to eventually scrape it off, it left stains.  

I brought the frames into the kitchen...Bill thought it might be a good idea to do the extraction outside but our experience with the wasps in the bee yard made us think twice about that idea.  A sticky kitchen is better than a battle with wasps over buckets of honey!  You might remember that when I worked with Roy, we used a heat gun to uncap the honey.  This time I did the uncapping with my capping scratcher.  The capping scratcher is like a comb with pointy ends.  

Uncapped frame...look at that honey

Taking off the wax caps with a capping scratcher

Extracting only 8 frames didn't take very long.    Once all the frames were empty I put them back into a super and gave them back to the bees to clean up.  They take the little bits of honey left in the cells and move them into other cells.  Once the wax is cleaned up I will store them in our shed for the winter.

Uncapped frame going into the extractor

Two frames in the extractor

Spinning the frames

Empty frame after spinning

My little honey operation has a name, Waxen City!  My daughter has designed a label for me.  It is a combination of urban and floral which perfectly describes our urban bees here in the middle of London, Ontario.

Label for my honey

Honey from Waxen City

I will go into the hives  after the autumn warms up again. I will finish extracting honey and then get them ready for the winter.  These last few days have been very cold and the bees are staying very close to home.  We have noticed that the workers are starting to boot the drones out of the hive so my next post will have to tell you that story.  It is gruesome!  Wait for it.  

By the way...you can click on any picture in this blog and it will fill your screen.  If you click on it again it will zoom in!

Back to School Education Post PART I

September 7, 2011

Fall is fast approaching and schools are back in.  What better thing than an educational post that finally answers all of your frequently asked questions?  Prepare for lots of reading.


 The Anatomy of the Hive.

The hives you are used to seeing in the fields are made up of wooden boxes and were designed in the 1880's.  Not much has changed since then.  Each box has 8-10 frames in it.  The frames I use have a plastic foundation on them that has hexagonal imprints on either side that the bees build their wax honey comb on.  These hexagonal cells (the hexagon is the structural form that provides the most strength using the least amount of material) are used by the queen to lay her eggs in and by the workers to store nectar and pollen in.  The cells are built on a slight upward angle so that the nectar does not flow out.  The bottom box of the hive is called the brood box and most of the eggs are laid there.  Some may be laid in the next box up which is called a super.  All the  boxes further up are also called supers and if they are primarily for honey, they are called honey supers.  There is an entrance at the bottom for the bees and it can be reduced depending on weather etc.  My hives have a top entrance as well which helps ventilation of the hive.

Here is a diagram of an exploded hive from Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees:

My hives are painted blue and have drawings of Queen Elizabeth I and Hippolyta on the brood boxes.  I chose blue because I understand that bees love this colour.  They can see a number of colours such as blue, ultraviolet, violet and yellow.  They see black and brown as "aggressive" colours since predators such as bears have that colouring and they also see red as black. As a result these dark colours and red are not great choices for clothing around the hives! The reason for the drawings on the hives is to help the bees distinguish their own hive.  Bees are able to distinguish up to 4 characters.  They also have an amazing natural GPS that helps them navigate their way home.  If the hive is moved even 6 inches to one side, the bees will go directly to where it was before realizing that something has changed.  Some  bees will drift to other hives but generally they stick to their own.

The Bees:

A hive is made up of one queen, a few hundred drones (males) and many thousands of workers (females).  Hives can have up to 60,000 to 100,000 bees when mature...mine are might be between 20,000 and 30,000 bees right now but I'm not really sure.  Here are the 3 bees that make up the hive.

As you can see, the queen is twice as large as the worker.  She is an egg for 3 days, a larvae for 5.5 days, a pupa for 7 days and can live from 2-5 years.  She is capable of stinging more than once but generally only uses her stinger to sting rival queens.  The queen only leaves the hive once (except when swarming) and that is to be fertilized.  She will not be fertilized by any of the drones in her own hive which ensures diversity of genes.  The queen will leave the hive when she is born and will fly to a meeting place where all the drones from other hives also congregate and wait for virgin queens to come along.  The queen will fly high above the meeting place and the the drones will follow.  As she flies higher and higher, the weaker drones will fall off and only the strongest will continue and finally win.  The queen can be fertilized by up to 17 drones so she will have diversity of sperm at her disposal.  Each drone that was successful in fertilization will die since their sexual members literally get ripped out by the act.  The queen then goes back to the hive and lays eggs for the rest of her life.  She can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day and can choose which sperm will fertilize which egg.  I even noticed in my own hives that the bees being born looked different throughout the season as they came from different fathers.  From my reading and meeting other beekeepers I have heard stories of the queen laying more aggressive bees in response to attacks on the hive by skunks or racoons!  The queen produces a pheremone.  This pheremone lets the bees of her hive know where they belong and they will always come back to their own hive due to the pheremone.  The workers also spread this pheremone around.

The drone is the male family member.  He is an egg for 3 days, a larvae for 6.5 days, a pupa for 14.5 days and can live from 40-50 days.  The drone is incapable of stinging.  He has a great life generally.  He eats, sleeps, is cleaned up after by the workers and makes flights every afternoon in search of virgin queens.  If unsuccessful, he comes back to the hive to eat, sleep and be cleaned up after until fall.  He is then booted out of the hive to perish in the wilds.  More on this fate in another post.  Some writings suggest that drones are the cheerleaders of the hive and keep morale up so perhaps they are not so useless as some suggest.  My drones are black bodied and quite large.  When they are flying in or out, you can hear their buzz...a very loud drone. 

The worker is exactly that...a female worker who literally works herself to death.  She is an egg for 3 days, a larvae for 6.5 days, a pupa for 12 days and can live 6 weeks in the summer and 6 months in the winter.  The worker can sting only once.  If she should use her stinger, it will rip out with her entrails and she will perish.  She has 4 glands.  One produces wax, one royal jelly, one invertase and one for scent. Her 6 weeks of life in the summer are spent in various roles.  When she is born she immediately starts to work as a house bee.   As a house bee she performs the following tasks:  cleaning brood cells, attending the queen, feeding brood, capping cells, packing and processing pollen, secreting wax, regulating temperature and receiving and processing nectar into honey.   When she is in her prime, around 3 weeks she moves on to being a guard.  The guards do not let any bees or other insects not belonging to the hive in  They will attack and fly away with any strangers unless they are carrying pollen or nectar.  In that case they are welcome.  Drones from any other hive are also welcome.  I watched my guards attack a bumble bee and drag it away from the hive.  It was easily triple the size of one honey bee.  After being a guard the worker then moves on to being a forager, a very difficult and dangerous task.  The foragers go out into the wild in search of nectar and pollen.  They get a little help from the scout foragers who go out ahead to discover the best sources of nectar and pollen.  As young foragers, they fly out of the hive and hover for awhile as they check the position of the hive (set their GPS).  They hover, fly a little ways away, fly back, fly further and further until they are ready to set out.  I have seen the new foragers hovering around the hive like a cloud, turn to face the hive and then head out. I imagine that the honey bees in my own garden are the young ones who aren't quite ready for the railway tracks.  Foragers simply wear themselves out with flying and carrying nectar and pollen back to the hive.  Weather, birds, wasps and pesticides are some of the dangers the bees have to contend with.  Happily, London is "pesticide and herbicide free" so urban bees have a better chance of it.  The workers that are born towards the end of the summer are Winter bees and tend to be fatter which helps them adapt to the cold better.  They will live through the winter through to spring.

This is the end of Part I of the Educational Post.  Stay tuned for how the Queen is made, swarming, making honey and other interesting facts!