Bees of all sorts

Just one of the wild bee species in Belize

We’ve been really interested in getting some honey bees, but didn’t know how to go about it. It turns out that we had a type of bee hive in the corner of the house.

They are very small bees, about 1 cm long and 1/8 inch wide. they don’t sting either. They build a wax tube into their hive and that’s how they enter and exit, and at night they seal up the tube so nothing can get in.

Today we noticed that the bees were swarming around, and all of them seemed to be out of the nest. Had we been prepared, we would have had a bee box ready so they could move into it! But alas, we weren’t ready, and now they are gone. Maybe something got in and was stealing their honey, or maybe there were too many and they took a queen and went and started a new hive.  I’ll check tomorrow if there are any bees left. Then we will have to get a box ready in case they swarm again.

UPDATE: there are still bees at the corner of the house, so they must have split the hive! Good news, we still have time to make a bos for the next time they split!

Important Fact

Worldwide bee populations are declining – due to something called Colony Collapse Disorder. Basically cultivated bee populations are dying because of mites and diseases that have become resistant to our antibiotics. Why should you care about this? Well, beyond not being able to get honey – which is an awesome and healthier alternative to sugar, bees pollinate fruit trees, vegetable flowers, and crops of all sorts. They are very important to our eco-system. So I encourage you to plant flowers to attract and feed bees, and try not to use products in your yard that would poison them. Read more at: http://www.xerces.org/2004/10/20/can-wild-bees-take-sting-from-honeybee-decline/