Natalie Towne - Beekeeping 101
Deb LeMoyne introduced us this evening to Natalie Towne, who has a very interesting hobby. Natalie has been a beekeeper for three years and gave us a primer on bees and beekeeping. Natalie has always enjoyed being outdoors, with a passion for gardening since she was just a kid. When her brother found a swarm of bees for sale on the internet, he suggested she buy them. Natalie learned that the cooperative extension offered beekeeping classes and signed up; after just a couple of sessions she was hooked.
Humans have been collecting honey from bee hives for thousands of years. Cave paintings in Spain dating back 8,000 years depict humans gathering honey from bee hives. In the 18th and 19th century, methods were developed which allowed beekeepers to harvest honey without destroying the hive. The Langstroth hive is a movable hive invented in 1852. This box-like structure is the hive most commonly used by beekeepers throughout the world, and has remained essentially unchanged in that time.
Typically, one of these hives can contain up to 65,000 honeybees: one queen, one- to two-thousand drones, and the rest workers. On average a queen will lay 1,500 eggs per day. The workers are all female and perform different tasks, depending on their age. The first few days after pupating are spent cleaning out the cells of the comb and warming the brood nest. For the next several days, they feed the larvae. After that, they may spend a week receiving pollen and nectar from the foragers, or making wax and building cells. At two weeks old, they become guards or foragers. Workers live from 6 – 16 weeks on average. The drones do not work, do not forage, and have no other function than to mate with the queen. When that function is no longer needed, the workers force the drones out of the hive to die, biting and tearing their wings and legs.
During their foraging for pollen and nectar, pollen sticks to the bee’s bodies. It can then be deposited on the next flower visited, resulting in that flower’s pollination. Honeybees pollinate a large variety of plants, including most food crops. It is estimated that honeybees pollinate 90% of New York’s apple crop. Pollen and nectar collected by the bees are used to make honey, which is the hive’s food source. Beekeepers must use care when harvesting to ensure they leave sufficient honey for the hive’s survival. Honey is mainly fructose and glucose and is as sweet as granulated sugar. It contains almost no water, which prevents fermentation. Honey can be stored for very long periods of time, provided it is not exposed to moisture.
Beekeeping is a rewarding, fascinating activity, and Natalie has a wealth of knowledge on the subject. We were treated to just a fraction of the information available, but came away with a new appreciation of the complex ways in which nature works. We thank Natalie for sharing her passion with us.
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