The future of honey bees is something the Reporter has touched upon from time to time. They not only provide us with honey but, more importantly, they pollinate our gardens and crops. Without them, we're in big trouble. Mandy Dowd tells more about how to deal with bees while protecting this vital link in nature's chain.

Spring is an important time for bees. They are not generally aggressive, less so than their cousins in the wasp family. If they are dangling from a branch resembling a strange bunch of grapes, or if they are forming a mass on a wall, this is what is known as a swarm. As a part of their natural reproductive cycle, they have gorged on honey for their journey, and are in a very passive state. They generally won't move until a scout bee finds them a new home.

How do you know that they are honey bees and not wasps or some other bee?
Apis mellifera, the honey bee, comes in a subtle variety of colors and sizes, but the various subspecies essentially resemble each other: about 1 cm in length, tending to swarm in spring in great numbers (unlike wasps and solitary bees),
Despite rumours about vicious African Bees, they are mostly docile members of the Apidae family If you have a musical ear, you will hear that they sustain a fairly even C# with the hum of their wings (flies, bumblebees and most wasps, register lower). Unlike bumblebees, their abdomens are not furry, and unlike wasps, their abdomens to not end in a threatening point.

Beekeepers have introduced other sub species into the area, and because subspecies can interbreed, often one encounters bees that are a mix, where some are yellower than others.

Some species of wasps may build cellular nests similar to bees, but these nests are much smaller, constructed of a white papery substance, not wax.
If you are not sure, call me.
Remember, honey bees are our friends and they are truly endangered by multiple contributing factors including the loss farmlands and particularly in this area, the disappearance of floral cultivation for the perfumeries. Also pesticides, OMG, cells phones and other electromagnetic influences all collaborate against their survival. Yet scientists have determined that if Apis mellifera becomes extinct, the human race will have about four years left to live for want of fruits and vegetables. The bee is utterly essential to our food chain, way above and beyond the pleasure of honey.
Notify me and often I can come fetch the bees as soon as possible for no charge, usually the same day or within 24 hours. I also gather up abandoned garden hives, occupied or empty.
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Mandy Dowd
