Honey Bees and the weather

     Today it was raining outside and so when I went out to the rosemary where I normally watch the honey bees I found only a few where normally there are thirty to forty honey bees flying around. Here begged the question, what do honey bees do when it rains? While researching this I found out that many hives will stop flying away from home a day before a giant storm hits. Somehow it seems that they can predict weather changes. While researching a bit further I found this story about hurricane Gustav and how all the bees disappeared about 2 to 3 weeks before the storm actually hit. Here is a letter from a woman who noticed this strange happen stance.

Hurricane Gustav

 

     Fema set a deadline for picking up debris and tree limbs and will only pass one more time with their dump trucks.  So, I helped my brother Ronnie cut up some large tree branches still resting on his trailer this past Sunday. And today, (Tuesday), with me being busy working on a paint job, my brother decided to come over to my side of the street to gather up tree branches and twigs that I had already cut.

This is interesting, similar to your post about frogs gathering before earthquakes occur. When I had painted a local church statue a strange phenomenon happened.  A ball of honey bees swarmed above the statue of Mary I was painting and then a minute later they swarmed in  the top of a tree about 10 ft. away for another minute, and then they left as quickly as they had arrived.

A few weeks later as I pondered about that event I went out into my yard to observe a natural bee hive inside the base of a tree in my front yard that had been there for years. But the bees had moved away. This was about two or three weeks before Hurricane Gustav came, I even told my brother that the bees had moved away.  I waited and waited, and not a single bee could be found.

The next few days and weeks I had looked again.  Still no bees.  At the time my brother and I had just concluded that it was a natural occurrence, that for whatever reason, the queen bee had moved the hive away.  We forgot about it.

But today as we approached the familiar tree with holes at the base and one a little higher up, we both noticed something peculiar. The bees are back!  My brother speculated that perhaps somehow, they sensed something was endangering them (the hurricane) just weeks before the storm hit.

bees are simply amazing!

     Its time to start planting a bee garden! Today Haden and  Dad made three planter boxes, gofer proof and all! Now its time to start picking the flowers that will be best for pollen. After doing some research I have found that some of the best are fruit trees. It isn't possible to get a flowering fruit tree right out the gate however (they take years to grow) so I am looking for some other sorts of good pollen supplies. Here are my findings!

Rosemary



Lavander

Clover

sunflower

bee balm

poppy

Bachelor's button

     These are just a few that are suggested, however I love how all of these colors will go together in the garden. All of these will grow here in my backyard, the only problem is they also all need full sun. so we're going to have to find a spot where there will be lots of sun for them to grow!

Mythology and History of the Honey Bee

MYTHOLOGY    

Legends about bees and beekeeping come from all over the world, including Egypt, Greece, Africa and China. In Egypt bee keeping was a sacred art as the honey was thought to have come from the tears of the sun god Ra. Jars of honey and ceramic jars used for bee hives have been found in Egyptian tombs so much as 2,422 BC. Pictures of hieroglyphs of bees have been found on many temple walls in Egypt. Sealed pots of honey were found in the tomb of King Tut.

this picture was taken from an old temple wall depicting a bee keeper pouring honey into a pot surrounded by his bees.

     In Greek mythology the honey bee finds itself in a very prestigious spot as honey was considered the food of the gods. When Zeus the chief god of Greek mythology was a baby he was fed on nothing but honey. The legend of beekeeping in Greece started with a young god named Aristaues, who was the keeper of bees. Aristaues sacrificed four bulls to the gods and from the entrails came thousands of honey bees which he used to teach beekeeping to man  kind.

ancient Greek coins such as this one were made with the depiction of the honey bee.

HISTORY

There is no solid date for when mankind began domesticating bees, however some of the earliest evidence comes from rock paintings dating back 13,000 BC. The honey bee is thought to be prehistoric, and fossils of the apis have been found to be over 14 million years old. There are only seven kinds of recognized honey bee with 44 sub species. Although honey bees make up a small amount of the 22,000 species of bee in the world, they honey bee is responsible for 80 percent of all pollination. without the honey bee our food sources would dwindle and eventually die out. The type of honey bee normally used for bee keeping is the European bee. The African bee, another species of bee is what you DON'T want when bee keeping. these bees are known to be very aggressive and to not produce as much as the European, so when buying honey bees make sure you get the right kind. As my mentor told me "the African bee also known as the killer bee can fly as fast as a person can sprint and will go 3 miles from the hive. if you decide to raise African honey bees, just make sure you can sprint for three miles. Don't jump in water, whatever you do. The African bee will hover above the surface and wait for you to come up."

the European honey bee

"When I die let my soul become a thousand Honey Bees"

     My love for honey bees started almost a year ago. Since then I have never stopped loving the small creatures and everything to do with them. As I learned more and more about the honey bees I could not help but to be awestruck by them. After going out on my first apiary trip, I knew I needed to get my own hive. So here is my blog about being a new bee keeper!