A tiny colony of honey bees ( Apis mellifera) has build a little nest on a sturdy cabbage plant stalk by the Cleveland Way. They arrived during the last week of August. It’s difficult to count them but it looks as though there are a couple of hundred of them. They have built a small wax ‘honeycomb’ – each cell a beautiful hexagonal shape used to store food or rear their brood.
The bees feed on nectar and pollen taken from flowers. They work for more than ten hours a day through spring, summer and early autumn gathering nectar – their main carbohydrate source, and pollen – their protein.
Stores of honey – which is regurgitated nectar – and pollen – gathered on the bees’ legs in special ‘pollen baskets’ – will see them through the winter and enable them to stay together as a colony.
Honey bees don’t hibernate, they huddle together to stay warm enough to survive the cold and become active again once temperatures rise.
The bees in the centre of the ball are kept warm by the bees on the outside. The honeybees will rotate so that no bee gets too cold.
With that in mind, the queen honeybee – the most important bee in the hive – is kept in the centre of the honeybee cluster. She’s responsible for mating with the drones and laying eggs that ensure the colony’s future. The worker honeybees (female) will feed her, and the larvae, and keep her warm. The drones (male) are expelled from the hive when winter comes.
It seems unlikely that the Cowbar swarm are wild honeybees, which rare in the UK. They could have escaped from a managed hive nearby and become feral.
Honeybees are social bees that live in permanent colonies of up to 50, 000. Feral colonies like to nest in hollow trees or somewhere sheltered. This makes us a little concerned for the tiny Cowbar colony which will be very exposed, where they are currently, to wind, cold weather and human interference. It is also a very small colony which might reduce their chances of keeping warm.
We have asked the local bee keeping association for some advice about what will keep these bees safest, so more to follow!