One of our beekeepers recently asked me if I would write something about honeybees. I am not an expert on them nor am I a beekeeper, but I am fairly familiar with them. When I was young there were many beekeepers, including my uncle and grandfather. When the hives were robbed it was my job was to carry the wash pan containing the honey frames, to my grandmother. Dropping them was not acceptable. My attire for this job was generally short pants and barefooted. I always had a few bees escort me to the house, but being stung was no excuse for not completing the mission.
Many lawns had clover in them for the bees. When I was young if you stepped on a bee while barefooted, you could cry and go to momma to get the stinger removed. As you got a little older, if you stepped on a bee, you didn’t say anything and you got the stinger out yourself. This is how you qualified for carrying the honey to the house.
In my job as a University of Georgia Agricultural Extension Agent, if someone has clover in their yard they usually want to know how to get rid of it. So now we teach classes on the importance of honeybees and encourage homeowners to grow plants to attract pollinators. About thirty percent of the food we eat is not self-pollinating and must be pollinated by insects or other external means. The primary pollinator is the honeybee. We did a survey in the community garden last year to identify the types of pollinators present. The garden has several varieties of pollinator friendly plants. We had butterflies, bumblebees, tiny bees, and one hummingbird moth. We saw no honeybees.
One day at the farmers market, we discovered some honeybees in a garbage can. The children attending Parks and Rec’s summer camp have snacks that are disposed of in the cans. I am sure people were wondering why three grown men were gathered around the garbage can as we tried to determine where the bees had come from. Best we could tell, it was somewhere behind the restaurants across the street. We thought it a shame that the bees had to revert to harvesting their nectar from empty drink cups in the garbage. There is a definite need to provide pollinator friendly plants, but it is also a fact that honeybees are in decline. There are several reasons for the decline. Some of which can be controlled. Honey bees produce honey so that they can have food for the winter. If too much honey is harvested for human consumption, the bees can and do starve to death. Pesticides can also kill honeybees. If necessary, they should be applied late in the evening when the bees are in their hive. If you know of beekeepers in your area, they should be notified before applying chemicals that may be harmful. This includes fogging for mosquitoes.
If a hive gets overcrowded, which they sometimes do, the queen will leave with about sixty percent of the bees to find a new home. These swarms are fairly docile and pose no threat to humans, so don’t panic and call the exterminator. The bees will congregate on a tree limb or other structure and wait for scouts to find a suitable place to live, at which time they will all move to the new location. This is when my phone will ring with folks wanting to know what to do. The first step is to make sure that we are dealing with honeybees and not yellow jackets, ground bees or some other species. I can then contact one of our local beekeepers and they will come collect the swarm. Keep in mind that if the bees are behind the walls of your house, the beekeepers are not going to take responsibility for damage that may be necessary to remove the bees. If you have honeybees in your house, I recommend that you make a decision as to who will make the repairs before we call the bee keepers.
We need to all work together to protect this very important pollinator.
If you want to know more about honeybees, contact the Henry County Beekeepers Association or call the Extension office at 770-288-8421.
