Beekeeping: The Lost Art

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Beekeeping is defined as the occupation of keeping and breeding Honeybees for their honey. Beekeeping has been around for centuries. Beekeepers are very experienced in handling Honeybees and the many rewards they can bring. To keep bees, one must know how bees work, the diseases of the Honeybee, and the types of equipment and the purpose each tool. It is also important to know why honeybees are disappearing and what society as a whole can do to prevent their disappearance.
Honeybees or Apis Mellifera as they are known to the scientific world, are very unique animals. Unlike most pollinating insects, Honeybees are highly social, and tend to live in large nests in the wild. There are three types of Honeybees that live in these nests: The Queen Bee, the Worker Bees, and the Drone Bees. The Queen is the parent of the hive. There is usually one queen per colony. Her sole purpose is to lay eggs so the colony is continuously populated (Flottum 33). She is the only able-bodied bee to lay eggs. The Worker Bees are female bees that work to carry out daily hive functions. Their jobs depend on their age and they do not live for very long, their life expectancy averages about 6 weeks during the spring and summer and about 6 months during the winter. There is five main jobs worker bees do: Nursing, Comb builders, Hive maintenance, Guarding, and foraging. These jobs go in order of age. The younger bees will be the nurse bees that will tend to the young and feed them and as well as keep them warm. The comb builders are slightly older and build comb for storage of honey or pollen and the storage of more young the queen will produce. Beeswax comes from special wax glands located underneath the Worker bee’s abdomens (Flottum 37). Hive maintenance ...

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