Home Country

By Slim Randles

November 19, 2004

"One of the more interesting parts of raising bees," said our extension agent, Len Beasley, "happens now in the fall."

There were almost a dozen of us at the September meeting for people who might someday want to be beekeepers. After all, what could be easier? You don’t feed them, water them, brush them or pet them. All you do is steal from them twice a year. This kind of animal husbandry appealed to more than one of us.

"You might notice," Len said, "if you go out and watch the landing board on your hive, that the workers are getting rid of the drones for winter."

Getting rid of the drones?

"Well, yes. If you don’t need them for breeding, and that’s all they really do, then why feed them? You see, all summer long they’ve been hanging around, eating honey, watching TV, leaning back in the recliner, just waiting to see if a queen needed their services. They don’t gather or make honey or take care of the youngsters, or anything else.

"But now it’s fall, and winter is coming on, and honey will be needed for the queen and the workers, all of them female, of course. So what the workers do is stop feeding the drones for several days until they’ve very weak. Then they drag them out of the hive and throw them to the ground, where they die."

"Isn’t that interesting?" said Martha Tucker, with a smile.

We didn’t like the way she looked at her husband.

It’s starting to get cold at night now.