I got the opportunity to go out and check the bee hives on campus with Mary Whitfield! On the EDCC campus, we have two bee hives located in the community garden. One hive is home for the Caucasian Honeybee, while the other is for the Orange Italian Honeybee.
Each bee hive is composed of 3 parts; two deep boxes, and one shallow box. The deep boxes are where the majority of the bees, as well as the queen are. These boxes contain the bee larvae as well. The shallow box is on top, and this is where honey is stored by the bees. Between the deep box and the shallow box there is a grid, allowing only the worker bees and drones through. This keeps the queen bee contained inside the hive. This separator can be seen in the picture below:
Once we removed this bee filter and the first deep box....I SPOTTED THE QUEEN!! I had never seen a queen bee before, but it was obvious to which one was the queen. She had a large, black abdomen and was significantly larger than the other bees. The queen can be seen in the middle of the picture below:
A smoker is a device that spits out smoke on the bees. This drives away the bees, so when placing the boxes back on top of each other, or any other maneuvers, no bees get killed. Here is what the smoker we used looked like:
This was one of the most interesting, and extremely informative things that I have done this quarter in biology!!! I learned so much about how bees live, how they reproduce, and how they pollinate, make food, and make honey. Plus, I got to dress up in a bee suit, and look like an astronaut...who wouldn't want that?!
Below are just some more pictures I took from the experience!!
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