Bee-Havior
By Gregory Shumchenia
22 May 2008
Imagine a world without honey bees. Now imagine a world without pears, raspberries, or hundreds of other food products that humans consume, that the honey bee is responsible for pollinating. Honey bees provide more than 80% of America's pollination services. But over the last few winters, over 25% of the Western honey bee population as been lost, posing a serious threat to our natural food supply. Commercial and recreational beekeepers all over the country are experiencing this loss. The honey bees spontaneously abandon their hive and can't survive in the cold winter air. Researches don't know for sure what's causing this behavior, but believe there may be many things contributing to the problem, including viruses, mites, chemical exposure, and poor nutrition. So what's a beekeeper to do? Well, displayed in this series of photographs is a process known as re-queening. It's just what it sounds like. The queen of the hive is replaced in the early spring every one to two years to keep the hive healthy and active, and hopefully prevent swarming, abandoning the hive, and ultimately death. A queen bee is only on top of her game, so to speak, for a year or two, making her replacement necessary. Photographed here is a new queen bee, inside a small enclosure with a few new worker bees. The queen is marked with a blue dot so she's easy to find next year. The hive is disassembled frame by frame in the hunt for the old queen, who sadly must be removed and killed, so that there's not competition between her and the new queen. The new queen is introduced in a small enclosure where the only exit is through a small sugarcane candy cork. The bees take several days to eat through this cork and release the queen, adequate time for everyone to get used to each other. The hive is now as strong as it was a year ago with a youthful, efficient queen at the helm, and can hopefully stave off infection or harsh weather, and continue pollinating flowers and producing honey.
