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The nest of the Honey bee has the reputation of being the
most perfectly organised state known among insects. It is
ruled by a single queen, the mother of all the occupants
of the hive.
A typical honey bee colony is made up of one queen, thousands
of workers, and a few hundred drones. A colony of honey bees
can number up to 80,000, all the residents having defined
duties.
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The queen lays the eggs. The workers, which live only
a short time, perform different tasks. In the first
phase of their life they keep the nest clean, and subsequently
feed and help rear the young grubs.
They are also kept busy building the regular hexagonal
cells of the comb from wax produced by their wax glands;
they also concentrate nectar and fill the cells with
pollen.
When they have completed these tasks they act for
a short time as guards. The last phase of their life
is spent collecting pollen and nectar.
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The hive only contains males (drones) in spring and early
summer, their sole function being to fertilise the new queens.
The queen measures 16-20mm. The workers 12-15mm and the males
14-18mm. The honey bees body is golden brown and black in
colour with pale orange/yellow rings on the abdomen.
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Life cycle:
Bees develop from the eggs laid by the queen . During the mating
the drone places semen inside the queen's body. The queen stores
the sperm in a sac in her abdomen. If the queen releases sperm
onto a egg, the egg hatches into a worker. If she does not
release sperm it develops into a drone. Honey bee eggs are
pearly white and about as big as the head of a pin.
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Development starts as soon as the eggs are laid. After about
three days the tiny larva crawls out of the egg. The workers
provide the growing larva with a rich creamy substance called
Royal Jelly which is rich in vitamins and proteins. This
is formed by glands in the head of the young worker bees.
When the larva is three days old, the workers begin to feed
it a mixture of honey and pollen called beebread. The workers
place a wax cap over the cell containing the larvae about
one week after it hatches from the egg. In the cell the larvae
becomes a pupae and develops into an adult. The adult worker
bee bites its way out of the cell about 21 days after the
egg is laid. Drones take about 24 days to develop...
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Reason for control:
Honey bees are a very beneficial insect in our environment and
only occasionally does their presence constitute a pest problem.
Most professional pest control companies are reluctant to use
pesticides on bees nests unless absolutely necessary.
Occasionally however there are no alternatives; i.e.
where their presence may cause a risk to health and
welfare.) Swarming bees may also cause a serious health
risk when present in large numbers.
Where honey bees do become a problem our advice is
consult a beekeeper first to see if they can offer
an alternative to destruction.
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Worker bees perform a host of tasks
from cleaning the hive cells to looking after the
larvae
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Control measures:
Honey bees are very susceptible to insecticides, where individual bees
are a problem, an aerosol insecticide should prove sufficient for controlling
the odd nuisance bee. Dealing with more serious problems like nests,
swarms etc, should be left to the experts. Because honey bees survive
winter conditions active nests will continue to expand from one year
to the next. Their presence in places like chimney stacks, roof voids
and cavities can cause many problems, such as blockages in flues, and
severe staining to the fabric and plasterwork of buildings.
Where nests are treated with insecticides, it is important
that as much of the nest is removed as possible following
the treatment, and measures should be taken to prevent any
non-target foraging honey bees from entering the nesting
site and taking away any contaminated honey. Failure to do
this may lead to contamination of honey destined for food
use, serious bee kills, and destruction of hives.
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