Associazione Naturalisti SACILE ONLUS
Bees
knowing them to defend them, knowing them to improve our lives.
Brassica napus
“To our parents, hard-working bees, humble and united�
Text and Pictures by Alfredo Marson
With the help of the Assessorato alla Cultura, Sport, Relazioni Internazionali e Comunitarie (Council Department of Culture, Sport, International and Community Relationships) – Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia
Graphics: iBunkerStudio.com - Sacile (PN) Print:
Associazione Naturalisti Sacile ONLUS, Viale Zancanaro 10 - 33077 Sacile (PN) - Tel. +39 0434 734246
Fotoapi.com by Alfredo Marson, Via Luigi Nono 22 - 33077 Sacile (PN) - Tel. +39 339 7098291
Melilotus albus
Introduction to naturalist culture.
The “Associazione� thanks the author and his wonderful work, which is by now part of our long and well-established publishing tradition. Canzio Taffarello President of the Associazione Naturalisti Sacile ONLUS
Brassica napus
Happiness There is a bee that alights on a rosebud: After all, happiness Trilussa
Preface Bees can teach us al lot. Their society is based on industriousness. They do their duty
at certain moments it turns into a democracy, where worker bees take decisions with an absolute balance. can suppose that theirs isn’t only an animal instinct, but an initial form of intelligence; Using a sort of school, bees teach their progeny the “social skills� which will allow them to
of angiosperms (230.000 species of shrubs, among which trees, herbage, water plants, The images enriching this book will guide the reader through the most important phases of
and in the wonderful areas still untouched by human progress. The pictures in this book were taken along the water courses in the fantastic resurgence
was. the bees of the numerous bee keepers of the area get their nourishment.
of years, and a lot of them come and reproduce in those well known therapeutic waters. known by the new generations. Just in places like these there a lot of pollinator insects,
plants and ecosystems. ”. At the end of the book “
knowledge.
” (The end of the crooked world), Mauro ”.
Summary 10 16 34 44
01 02 03 04
The house of bees
06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Pollen
Flowers and bees, bosom friends
62 68 82 86 90 96 104 114
The spark of life
Propolis Water The ecological concrete of bees
The swarming Food chains
01 The house of bees Bees as guardians of our history
Some rocky pictures of about 30,000 years ago portray “bee-tamers” who let The oldest testimony of the synergy between men and bees and of the beginning of of Neolithic settlements, the forerunners of the beekeepers in Friuli were probably
the patient and painstaking work of the beekeeper. nursing and respecting them, aware of the fact that if they die, this will mean the loss of all their products. I’m sure that the beekeeper, thanks to his work, has a particular care towards the respect in the relationship man-bee will induce men to interact in the same way with all the other forms of life and with the whole nature.
10
disturbing them too much. Actually, till not many years ago all bees were killed to get their honey. 12
importance
(Langhstron
Nowadays beekeeping is results fully and naturally respecting bees. In the picture you can see a frame which is “eaten” by bees. In certain periods bees that’s the result!
Thanks to a special frame, biological war upon the
to reproduce, but it gets stuck in the male cells in one days.
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that’s the wild swarm. First the place is scrupulously selected by scout bees, which then inform other bees doing a dance. their propaganda longer and more doggedly will In this way the place is chosen democratically. It is usually the hollow trunk of a tree, or a space among the branches with the combs facing NorthSouth, as in the picture here on the right.
02 The training of young bees working career. Starting from the groundwork, they clean the cells, feed the young grubs (producing
to die for the welfare of the family.
predators.
All this seems to go beyond what we can call “animal instinct”, and probably it is the result of the intelligence of the insect. With their scant one million neurons, if compared with our 100 millions, bees astonish us. It’s impossible not to appreciate
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The honey bee is the only species present in Europe.
Therefore we can say she is the mother of all the present bees. After three days from the egg lay, the grub is hatched, and it is fed the egg is laid, after three days the egg becomes a grub and it remains like that till the eighth day. From the ninth day, through the capping operation (the sealing of the cell
protect her from predators and take her to the decided places. During this phase, while males chosen by the scout bees, in order to about 2 days, she will start laying eggs with a out only to swarm.
from an egg laid in a cell called and which is characteristic because it has the shape of a downwards open acorn. nurse bees from 1,200 to 1,600 nutritions, corresponding to a 17-hour work in total. It is fed capping operation (ninth day).
marks, such as big trees or water courses. Drones crowd together noisily waiting spermatheca about 6 million spermatozoa. After the swarming, at the end of June, they will be chased away by worker bees and they will die. warmth, which is useful for the grubs, and dehumidify honey together with worker bees.
A symbol of immortality The target of cell replication is to make an organism become bigger or to increase a population of organisms with similar genetic In the same way, the reproduction strategy of a bee colony, through the constant replacement of its members, makes the bee family
genetic identity of the family.
young worker bees. are naturally decomposed. They produce no waste material.
waterproof, crossed by castings of cement and asphalt. water we drink. In our industrial breeding farms we crowd animals together, we force them one on the other, we stuff them with anabolic
able to reach immortality, where with “immortality” we mean “endless reproduction”.
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24
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intruders.
Centaurea nigrescens
times and carefully gather about 30 kg of pollen.
Scabiosa trianda
Virgil: Georgics - Book IV: Bee-Keeping (Apiculture) Bk IV:149-227 The Nature and Qualities of Bees
03 Discovering the external world the remaining part of the life of a worker bee (about half of it) is characterized by the
attempts of robbing.
A perfect orientation system takes them back home. With their third pair of legs they store the pollen in their baskets, and the nectar in their honey sacs.
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Centaurea nigrescens
Malus domestica
Centaurea nigriscens
Anemone nemorosa
That’s a bee at the moment of the take-off after working a plant.
Wings are also used to regulate the tempeThrough the wings bees diffuse numerous smelling chemical substances in the air.
- Three simple eyes (ocelli) placed as a triangle on their heads which are used to measure the luminous intensity.
04 Flowers and bees, bosom friends chemically, through pheromones, and physically, through “dances”. This continuous by messages. By sending chemical information through pheromones, dancing on
called “dances”), which is a gestural code used instead of words and made up of Through the “round dance” they communicate the presence of nectar in the
on the comb, forming narrow circles and often changing their direction, in
rectilinear stretch of way swinging their abdomens right and left. Then they continue stretch again.
44
of the round angle.
territory.
the new homes during the swarming.
46
of 100,000 kilometres. These numbers easily demonstrate the hard work of bees.
Achillea roseo-alba
At rest, the mouth appendages of bees are fold up under their heads. When worker bees gather nectar or water, they form
Three pairs of legs are wonderful structures which enable bees to “climb� and to adopt acrobatic positions.
The glossa pierces the aglet of the hazel and the pollen goes out into the air.
thanks to enzymes, the transformation from nectar into honey starts. Some of the nectar goes into their intestines for their feeding.
Aster sp.
On the contrary, young house bees sleep much less.
better.
Aster sp.
Malus domestica
Centaurea nigrescens
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by guard bees in charge of the control of their mates going in and out and of their loads. secretes numerous chemical “smelling� substances.
something (nectar, pollen, and so on). sometimes becoming really intransigent. temperature so that they can increase the spreading of these smelling signs.
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will turn it into honey.
06 Pollen The spark of life
microscopic grains representing their genetic material. At its top the stamen has a sort of bulge called anther. Pollen is produced in the four sacs of this structure, and when the anther reaches
trees depend on bees.
starting from a little grub. In the same apiary, on the same day, bee families can work kinds of pollen completely different from each other; when the beekeeper gathers the pollen using special traps, he cannot be but surprised while noticing the different colours of these grains.
and purple).
During the inspection in search of nectar, the body of the bee constantly rubs 68
Cornus mas lose part of their precious loads which falls into special little drawers. moments of the day. Flowers offer their pollen more abundantly only at particular times, so the pollen of the morning may happen to be yellow, the one of the central in a honey sample under the microscope and so they can identify the geographical origins of the gathered nectar. In short, it is possible to understand if a particular In addition, it is possible to precisely single out most of the plants worked by the acacia honey, or lime, or dandelion, or amorpha, and so on.
of legs. 70
Pollen particles are airborn.
and nectar at the same time.
A honey bee sucking nectar and brushing its back at the same time.
of legs.
it is the protein nourishment of bees. It is a substance of fundamental importance for the raising of the brood.
the honey is stored; then there is the zone where the pollen is stored, and going down, in the middle, there are the cells destined to the brood. Energy and proteins necessary to feed the young grubs are within reach.
07 Propolis The pharmacy of bees elms, alders, oaks, and so on. Using their mandibles, bees take a piece of resinous substance and store it in their
and died there. Since they are unable to carry them out, they really embalm the intruders stopping in this way the process of decomposition. In ancient Egypt priests used propolis to mummify the remains of the dead. “in front of the town�; and this because bees built some structures using propolis in
linseed oil.
The bees of its home will help it and free it from that annoying load. 82
that precious load.
building material and as an antiseptic. They seal all the cracks and the unwanted steady. and the cells where eggs are laid.
on the combs a piece of meat which would putrefy with the passing of time (it could
08 Water The vital element “First look for a site and
in the puddles or on the grass wet with the morning dew.
take the water from the dancer bees, the more these are induced to continue their
forming steam. In the cold season bees increase their body temperatures contracting their wing against a cell. Their antennae are on the caps and with them they continuously
continuously coming and going. 86
Bees are greedy water gatherers. Water is used to soften the crystallize honey in the combs, during the summer to gather water rich in mineral salts.
In addition to nectar and pollen, bees gather
gathered with the water of the ditches or of the puddles, with the morning dew or they are intercepted by their hairy bodies during These substances are the indicators of
by men. In the last few years, for instance, of pollution due to products legally used in forbidden.
09 The ecological concrete of bees in 1814, and then by Claus in 1867, by Graber in 1872 and by Rosch in 1927, it was
up to orange. These hues depend on the type of plants worked by bees, but we On the contrary, combs with a brood tend to be brown.
builders.
structure. 90
In 1720 MacLaurin, an English mathematician, they use a cuspidate bottom for their cells. In
millimetres. Walls meet with an angle of 120 degrees and the
pyramidal shape with three identical rhombi
Dancer bees recruit worker bees only in a
This area is likely to be chemically marked recruit the mature gatherer bees are the sounds produced by the wings; these sounds include tail-waggings. When the dance is carried out in empty cells, the propagation of the sound is better if compared with the one of the sealed cells. The edge of the
produced by the bees doing the abdomen dance. Isn’t it amazing? to the dancer bee, touch it with their antennae
the 80,000 cells of the ten combs. million scales and use about 8 kilograms of honey.
so as to reach the wanted shape.
10 Bees defend themselves stinging himself against dangerous attacks. They produce what is called “humming�, the
hollow, sometimes decreasing humming; it indicates the death of the
- The humming of bees calling the mates which lost their bearings. With their wings
This kind of sound is appreciated by the beekeeper, because it means that the swarm has accepted the new home and it’s calling all the family to that place. raise their abdomens to the sky and, while taking their stings out, they secrete a by a frenetic wing beating. With this signal they are claiming for respect and if this
and mild.
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learning.
these cases the beekeeper is puzzled and he immediately thinks of a sack. and powerful. In our area, in the surroundings of La Santissima di Polcenigo still possible to admire this process. The mating phase brings an intense and loud
the apiary.
answer from inside their cells and determine their fates. It’s a war and death their bodies through piercing their cells with her royal sting.
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tanks, while after two weeks it is completely full. acetate, a warning pheromone which puts their mates in a state of alert, calling them towards the target. The bee which stings is destined to a tragic end; in fact the sting gets stuck in the human skin and, in the attempt to free itself, the bee tears its internal organs and dies.
their abdomens and take their stings out, showing a membranous part from where the
annoyed, they will attack. proper clothes).
for them to use their stings.
11 The swarming The “delivery� of bees Thanks to the pheromone secreted by her mandibular glands (mandibular secretion),
fertilized and she stops laying eggs. This is important, because when the day of the departure comes, she will be able to
The swarm waits among the branches not far from the apiary and calmly decides on the new destination, with a democratic choice taken by scout bees and shared by the whole swarm. Scout bees will dance tirelessly to communicate that the place they chose is the best. The decision to choose a new site, far from the other families, with new
In this picture we can admire the headlong coming out of the bees which are 104
If the beekeeper doesn’t catch the escaping bees, they may act autonomously and build their combs among the branches of a tree the
Some days before the swarming bees
Some families cluster, that is they crowd at
faithful to her (about half of the family) and come to an end! 108
The beekeeper will put the bees inside their new home.
The beekeeper will catch the swarm which generally stops a couple of days in the surroundings of the apiary. This operation is
through; in other cases she will be wrapped and suffocated by worker bees (picture on the right).
12 Food chains Who eats whom
global system.
continuously disassembled and assembled again, and the “bricks� they are made of are re-used. A carbon atom which is today inside a cell of our body could be useful tomorrow to form the leaf of a tree or the wing of a bee. When animals and plants die, their bodies are attacked by decomposers which demolish the proteins and release the nitrogen, which partially goes back to the atmosphere and partially goes into the ground in the form of nitrate. Phosphorus, which a fundamental element for the nuclei of our tissue cells, goes
which men should respect more and safeguard as the most precious thing they
such as nectar, pollen and propolis; and from nature they get water and mineral from predators, sometimes killing the aggressor, sometimes dying. 114
has no chance.
warning other bees against the danger.
Solidago gigantea
by our society.
bumble bee, often lurks in the surroundings of
Now and then also guard bees get their satisfactions!
Conclusion
strip cartoon. It addresses to an ideal reading public from the elementary to the middle school. It lasts about 30 minutes.
educational area. 124
An additional teaching instrument published in Power Point allows a further personalization of the educational phase.
educational area.
Other publications of the Associazione Naturalisti Sacile ONLUS
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Bees knowing them to defend them, knowing them to improve our lives
graphics and his sparkling personal contribution; The Associazioen Naturalisti ONLUS Sacile for the precious
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constant help and support; My son Alessandro, for his constant, precious and patient computer assistance and for the concrete realization of the strip cartoon. Laura Bassi for her technical and moral support and for the digitalization of our logo;
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Zardini Elena for the English translation. Print First published in April 2012
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