QUESTION and ANSWERS

Q and A ~ FOR THE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW AND DIDN'T KNOW WHERE TO ASK ~

Do you get bitten and does it hurt?
No I do not get bitten – stung, yes and does it hurt, only when I laugh... For a split second, and after a few choice words are delivered – a quick dab of alcohol or baby wipe and all is fine. Remember that when a bee stings a person it then dies as the stinger is left in the target. A bee can sting ONLY once – wasps can sting up to 5-6 times. And it is wasps who eat your hamburger meat at the picnic. Not bees.

How do you squeeze the honey from the bees?
Gently - between my fingers.. each and every one. (just kidding) Actually, the honey is collected from the frames or comb and then put into a centrifuge – a spinner – the front of the comb is sliced off cleanly and the whirling pulls the honey off. It is then collected in the vat, allowed to settle and then skimmed (sometimes with cheese cloth) so that any dirt, wings or body parts of trapped bees etc, is cleared. Our honey is not cooked – it remains raw and unfiltered.
Can you squeeze honey out of the wax?
No. BUT you can get honey out of the natural comb – that which the bees make themselves – by extraction.
But honey, without a comb as in a jar, can not produce wax.
What is the importance of the bee?
If you have eaten today then you will know – without pollination most of what we eat – vegetables, fruit, nuts etc... and that which cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens etc eat is predicated on a flower that has been pollinated, and hence new seeds, new plants, more food. The grass and alfalfa the cattle eat enables us to eat them.
How long does a bee live?
Workers and soldiers live 3-4 weeks. In the summer months the colony bees can literally shred their wings to ribbons as they have a great need to forage, sometimes up to 7 miles away as the food supplies diminish, and because of the need to keep the hive cool (wing flaps). In the winter months the bee can live up to 4 months - food is already stored in the hive as honey and the pollen serves as protein. There is little need to forage though the hive temperature does need to be maintained at the 95-96F at all times; difficult in snowy regions.
The drone lives until he is of no ‘service’ to the queen – then he is dragged out of the hive to fend for himself – and as he does not know how to find food or care for himself, he dies. The Queen can actually live as long as 5-7years but in today’s commercial world she is replaced every year. The Queen lays as many as 1,500 – 3,000 eggs a day. A new queen is introduced and as only one queen can ‘rule’ the option is for the old one to either leave the hive, or fight it out with the new arrival. The queen’s stinger is only reserved for another queen. Some beekeepers simply ‘remove’ her. We prefer to give her her choice – naturally.
How many bees to a box?
The box is called a hive. The colony – a thriving one – should have from 30,000 to 80,000 bees.
Remember the turnover within the colony, the community, is constant – every 3-4 weeks.
What gender are bees?
The worker and soldiers are all females.
                 The foragers and pollinators are female.
         The nursers and wax builders are female.
                 The drones are male and exist only to inseminate.
                 The queen’s sole purpose is to produce. She is female.
                 The hive is basically all ladies.
How many queens to a hive?
One – and if there are more there is battle to the end until ONE survives.
Though the other day I saw something most extraordinary – two queens on a single frame with their own entourages surrounding them, each cohabitating with the other in harmony!!! Incredible!!!
If I boil honey long enough will it become wax?
No – you will simply kill all the good aspects inherent IN honey.
And vice a versa – you can not squeeze a chunk of wax to create honey..

10. How do you ‘make’ the honey in the kitchen?
Actually I /WE DO NOT MAKE the honey. The bees make the honey.

11, How does the bee make the honey?
The worker bee goes out to forage/collect nectar from the plants. She then brings it back to the hive in in her second stomach sack – it is simply a pouch for holding - where the nectar is given a special enzyme by that worker. The newly created combo (honey) is then injected into the comb cell by the bee and when the cell is filled that individual cell will be capped with a thin layer of wax to seal in the honey. The honey is only sealed when the bee knows it is ready. We do not ‘take honey off’ before the cap is sealed (some beekeepers do). We wait for at least 85%-90% seal as the honey then is ready. raw unfiltered local honey raw honeycomb certified honey