It’s all about the bees
Just before the work started the building work on my gorgeous glasshouse home, I started a 1-year apiculture course at the Otago Polytechnic. The inspiration to take this on during a very busy time was 3-fold. Firstly, because I always get out and active in a new community to help build connections and secondly because the course was government subsidised in order toincrease the beekeeper population throughout New Zealand. The third incentive was that I’ve always been fascinated by bees and have used honey as a sugar substitute forever.
And so the journey began with my first humble hive and room full of classmates in 2022 and finished with a New Zealand Certificate in Apiculture (Level 3).
My first hive was kept offsite during construction and then moved to the Glasshouse property shortly after the project was completed at the end of 2023.
Queen Veronica and her busy brood have settled in well and I am loving having the bees so close by for the regular summer inspections, honey harvest season and the winter top up feeding. The hive backs onto my vege-garden, beside a row of lavender plants that the lovely ladies hit up those lavender blooms daily.
Last year I harvested 6Kg of delicious honey and this year I harvested a whopping 21kg!
Fun facts about the bees
- The mood of the bee colony is set by the pheromones of the queen – and while Queen veronica can be a moody brat during the honey flow – she generally keeps a calm and relaxed colony
- The female bees (workers) have double the chromosomes of the male bees (drones) and the drones are all kicked out of the hive over the winter when food stocks are low and I guess the worker bees are sick of feeding and looking after them maybe
- Queen bees live for 2–5 years which is WAY longer than the 6-week lifespan of worker bee
- Queen bees leave the hive to mate with up to 15-20 drones in mid-air during a single, short period in her life, storing the ‘goods’ for several years while her boyfriend’s drop dead
- Queens also lay up to 2500 eggs per day!... she’s one busy lady! No wonder she needs a reliable support crew
- A queen bee’s sting is not barbed like a worker bee’s so she is able to sting multiple times,and she will only use her stinger when fighting rival queen bees
- Bees have five eyes, communicate using some mad dance moves and possess a sense of smell 50 times more powerful dogs
- Bees have 2 stomachs: one for eating, and one for storing nectar and processing it into honey
- Bees are vital pollinators responsible for fertilizing nearly 90% of wild plants and 75% of leading global crops, with one-third of human food depending on them. Amazing right?