John Smith Talks Queen Bees

Our guest speaker on Tuesday was our own PP John Smith.  John is a beekeeper, also called honey farmers or apiarists. 

John brought along hive boxes to show the members.  Typically one queen lives in bottom.   The entrance is at the front. Excluder keeps the queen in bottom box.   John actually brought some live Queen bees along.  He passed them around. (see photo).  Queen bees live for three to four years and have a longer abdomen than workers or drones.  Drone bees mate with a virgin queen.  A hive can have 50,000 worker bees (all females)  in it.  When the hive gets overcrowded, the bees swarm and start a new hive.

John showed members photos of various stages of the growth of a hive and of the development of a queen bee.  See the Photo album of the Nov 13 meeting for more pictures.

Ken Taylor gave a vote of thanks.