Beekeeping (4)

Nectar is a sweet liquid secreted by plant nectaries in the flowers.

All plant species have the same amount of nectaries on their leaves, stems and other parts.

Nectar is offered to the bees after pollination.

Bees can detect nectar by infrared light

Bees avoid flowers visited recently by other bees.

If nectar is absent in a flower, the bee moves on to another flower.

A single worker visits up to 1500 flowers to get a load.

The average nectar load ranges from 40mg - 82mg

A single trip spends an average of 30 - 50 minutes.

An individual working bee can go up to 150 minutes to get a single load.

Duration of a trip depend solely on the bee's effort.

The average number of trips per day ranges from 10 - 20.

5 - 10 minutes are spent in the hive between trips.

A forager gives the nectar load to house bees, which convert it to honey.

Even if the nectar availability is marginal, it is essential for the forager to dance.

Sugar is chemically changed, and surplus water is eliminated during the conversion of nectar to honey.

Honey is kept into cells with fanning to get rid of the water.

The addition of honey to cells is stopped when the honey fills up 70% of the cell.

After filling a cell with honey, the bees top it off with a layer of wax.

Capped honey is before the bees cap the honey with wax.

The source of pollen grain is plant flowers.

Pollen is used to feed the colony.

Pollen consists of protein, fat, vitamins and minerals.

The only factor that affects the collection of pollen is the kind of plant.

One worker carries 12 - 29mg of pollen per trip.

100 flowers at least are needed to get a single load of pollen.

A single bee goes on 10 - 47 trips per day for pollen.

A single trip for pollen lasts 10 - 15 minutes.

A single trip for pollen may extend to 187 minutes.

58% of bees gather nectar.

25% of bees gather pollen.

17% of bees gather both pollen and nectar.

Water is needed for drinking and cooling the hive only.

Old workers tend to collect water.

Bees deal with source of water as a pollen.

All information regarding water is transferred by dancing.

Returning water foragers transfer water to bees that are not following the dancer.

The average load of water collected is 25 - 50 mg.

A single bee performs 25 - 50 trips for water.

A single trip for water lasts 2 - 3 minutes.

Bees fly to 10 km maximum to find a water source.

The daily water requirement in spring is 150gm.

For a strong colony, the daily water requirement in summer is 1000gm.

Bees tend to store water that is enough for days.

Bees can store water in the sac of certain bees called reservoir bees for several weeks.

Propolis is also known as bee glue and is obtained from injured parts of certain plants,

Propolis is a brown, gummy, sticky, resinous material.

Propolis is used by bees to coat the exterior hive wall, seal cracks, reduce openings or to encase objects that are too large for house cleaner bees to remove from the colony.

Propolis is dealt with as pollen.

A single trip for propolis needs 30 - 40 minutes.

The bee loaded with propolis may dance after bringing in the load to the hive.

Some bees follow the dancing bee loaded with propolis.