2 minute read
The buzz around honey bees
This month we’ve received a contribution from Robin Dartington, President of BuzzWorks Association - a volunteer association based in Hitchin that help people discover and enjoy the world of bees, as well as train people in the craft of beekeeping.
Buzzworks Association host visits to the BuzzWorks Discovery Centre, near the Old Hale Way Allotments in Hitchin, where you can enjoy the bee-friendly garden, bees and beekeeping exhibition and safely watch live bees at work. The group support local beekeepers and provide training courses for new and improver beekeepers at their larger Honeyworks Beekeeping Centre lying within Burford Way Allotments, backing on to Oughtonhead Nature Reserve.
Robin said: “Spring has sprung and there is glorious colour as plants and trees put out flowers to attract pollinators and make seed, birds build nests and sheep drop lambs. Spring is all about reproduction, without which a species rapidly goes extinct.
“Most insects lay hundreds of eggs in hope that at least one young survives to lay in future. One species however, honeybees, have evolved a different survival strategy very similar to that of mammals. They live in huge families known as colonies. Up to 50,000 bees can live in one nest consisting of a single reproductive female known as a queen, a few hundred males known as drones and thousands of sterile worker bees. The only way the family can reproduce is to split and half to go and find a new home, as humans do. The difference is that it is the parent, the queen, that leaves with the swarm, leaving the established nest to be inherited by a young daughter queen.
“After leaving, a swarm of about 20,000 bees hangs in the open like a huge pear while scout bees search for and agree the best available cavity in which to build a new nest. The bees have no home to defend, so are not in the least aggressive and no risk to passers- by.
“We need honeybees as the large colonies can carry out much more pollination than solitary species. So, if you see a swarm hanging in your garden or on a wall, do contact John O’Conner, NHDC’s Ground Maintenance Contractor, who will summon a local beekeeper to collect it and rehouse it in their apiary. Honeybees are at risk as is all life on Planet Earth, they have evolved as vegetarian wasps over 100 million years, let’s preserve them”.
You can find Buzzworks Association at Hitchin Market on the last Saturday of every month. Why not go along for a chat and buy some pure local honey?
