WEBVTT 1 00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:12.000 You 2 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:30.220 You 3 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:42.980 Hello everybody, I have a particularly interesting story for you about bees 4 00:00:42.980 --> 00:00:46.720 I was talking to a friend of mine the other day Walter Straub 5 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:53.140 And I knew he had a few bees, but I didn't realize he was one of the largest honey producers in the country 6 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:58.440 So I asked him if he'd set up an observation beehive for us here in the old tool shed 7 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.560 And you can see the bees get in and out here 8 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:05.580 But let's just take a close look and see what's going on in the hive 9 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:10.480 When you first look at the hive the bees seem to be just running around all over the place 10 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:13.780 But a closer look reveals a well organized community 11 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:17.400 Let's start at the beginning and watch this young worker bee emerging 12 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:21.760 It has to chew away the cap in order to get out of it six-sided wax cell 13 00:01:21.860 --> 00:01:29.000 Where it has developed from an egg to a larva then a pupa and finally an adult worker bee in a total of 21 days 14 00:01:29.660 --> 00:01:35.820 The worker bees are all females this young bee is being given its first taste of honey by a nurse bee 15 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:43.540 The male bees called drones are a little larger than the worker bees and their cells have sort of a dome that gives them the additional 16 00:01:43.540 --> 00:01:44.380 needed space 17 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:51.680 As soon as the worker bees emerge their first job is to help in cleaning the hive these are meticulous housekeepers 18 00:01:51.860 --> 00:01:58.720 The young worker bees also feed the rapidly growing larvae and for this reason the brood cells are not kept over 19 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:02.020 Until the larvae is ready to go through the pupa stage 20 00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:07.320 As the worker bees get stronger they also take over the job of fanning here 21 00:02:07.320 --> 00:02:12.940 They just hang on and fan with their wings for all their worth in fact at the rate of 12,000 times a minute 22 00:02:12.940 --> 00:02:19.320 This evaporates the moisture from the nectar brought in by the field bees and also helps cool the hive 23 00:02:19.940 --> 00:02:25.980 You can see how the flame of this candle is drawn in but the bees don't seem to like it too much watch this one 24 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:27.380 Put it out 25 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:33.400 Fanning is hard work, but the bees keep right at it this one doesn't even stop for lunch in this way 26 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:39.620 The bees keep their hive from overheating if the temperature outdoors gets too high the bees bring in moisture 27 00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:44.200 Which they evaporate with their fanning and actually cool the hive by air conditioning 28 00:02:44.200 --> 00:02:51.280 When it gets real cold outside the bees huddle together around the queen and create heat by consuming more honey 29 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:57.860 These have been known to maintain a temperature in their cluster as much as 140 degrees above the outside air 30 00:02:58.700 --> 00:03:05.460 After working in the hive for about three weeks the worker bees are ready to venture out into the fields in search of pollen and nectar 31 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:11.300 And in so doing perform a very important work of carrying pollen from one flower to another 32 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:18.620 Bee sometimes takes on a load of nectar equal to half its own weight and after flying all over from flower to flower 33 00:03:18.620 --> 00:03:21.880 It makes a bee line straight back to the hive 34 00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:25.660 The bees that find a good supply of clover or other flowers 35 00:03:25.660 --> 00:03:29.460 Return to the hive and do a dance to indicate where the flowers are 36 00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:34.240 When the bees dance around and around it indicates these flowers are nearby 37 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:39.060 When the flowers are farther away the bee runs in a straight line wagging its rear end 38 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:44.120 The odor of the nectar also helps the bees locate the same flowers in the field 39 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:49.120 Here comes another bee with a load of pollen which it carries in its pollen baskets 40 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:53.840 These are specialized structures found only on the hind legs of the worker bees 41 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:57.900 On a vertical comb the angle of the dance from the perpendicular 42 00:03:57.900 --> 00:04:05.440 Indicates the direction of the flowers from the hive in relation to the position of the Sun the number of wags indicate the distance 43 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:09.720 Oddly enough the bee does the most wagging when the flowers are nearby 44 00:04:09.720 --> 00:04:14.060 Apparently attracting more attention to the closest supply of nectar 45 00:04:14.060 --> 00:04:21.280 After several dances the bee then gives the nectar to one of the young hive bees to store away and goes out immediately 46 00:04:21.280 --> 00:04:27.920 For another load if it is carrying pollen it kicks the pellets off and a young bee packs them away in the cells 47 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:35.420 This pollen is known as bee break as the field bees keep bringing in nectar and pollen the engineer bees have to 48 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:37.380 Provide additional storage space 49 00:04:37.380 --> 00:04:42.560 Notice the white wax scales on the underside of the abdomen of the bee walking up the glass 50 00:04:43.220 --> 00:04:50.360 These scales are produced by wax glands and the bees scrape this off with their hind legs chew it up and mold it into shape 51 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:52.680 Only worker bees can produce wax 52 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:58.260 Probably the most fascinating aspect of the bee colony is the queen and here she is 53 00:04:58.260 --> 00:05:02.040 Surrounded by her attendants who are constantly feeding and caring for her 54 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:07.480 A few people realize the effort put forth in raising queen bees 55 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:12.860 So let's go down and visit one of Lakeshore's queen bee farms near Fort Pierce, Florida 56 00:05:13.520 --> 00:05:17.980 Here is mr. Walter D. LeBourette starting his daily activities 57 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:24.120 He is opening an ordinary beehive using a smoke pot as is customary to calm the bees 58 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:28.820 He removes the cover and then the upper compartment or super 59 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:32.620 He then takes off the 60 00:05:32.620 --> 00:05:37.620 Excluder that has holes in it just large enough to permit the worker bees to pass through 61 00:05:37.620 --> 00:05:39.660 But as the queen is a little larger 62 00:05:39.660 --> 00:05:45.780 She is restricted to the lower portion of the hive where she's kept busy laying eggs in the brood cells 63 00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:50.860 Mr. LeBourette is setting up a queen bee starter box 64 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:58.800 First he locates the queen in this regular hive 65 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:18.280 Here she is and as she will not leave the comb she's on 66 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:34.960 He sets it back in the hive and takes another comb and shakes the regular worker bees off into the queen bee starter box 67 00:06:37.760 --> 00:06:40.260 You notice he has left room for another frame 68 00:06:40.260 --> 00:06:45.040 Which you'll make up specially and place in this box in a matter of another two or three hours 69 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:51.280 That is after the worker bees in there have had time to discover that they have no queen with them 70 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.720 He then puts the cover on and gives them some sugar syrup 71 00:07:02.780 --> 00:07:07.220 The next step to encourage these queenless bees to start producing queens 72 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:13.520 Is to take another cost piece of a regular honeycomb frame and make some special little wax cell cups 73 00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:20.260 Here you can see how a small cell stick made of wood is first dipped into the cold water 74 00:07:20.260 --> 00:07:25.520 Then into a can of hot beeswax and allowed to harden on the cell bar 75 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:37.880 Next he opens up a partially developed a queen bee cell 76 00:07:44.200 --> 00:07:47.900 Discards the larva and removes the royal jelly 77 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:52.520 All young larvae are fed royal jelly for about two days 78 00:07:52.520 --> 00:07:58.980 At the end of which time the larvae selected by the bees to become workers are switched to a diet of bee bread 79 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:03.880 But those larvae selected to become queens remain on the royal jelly diet 80 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:10.520 Royal jelly is produced by glands in the heads of the worker bees and is high in protein 81 00:08:10.520 --> 00:08:16.200 It is used for certain medicinal purposes and sells on the market for about $100 an ounce 82 00:08:16.200 --> 00:08:25.220 So Mr. LeBret dilutes the pure royal jelly with water, stirs it up well and then places one drop in each of the little wax cell cups 83 00:08:50.660 --> 00:08:55.900 Now Mr. LeBret takes a broodcomb from the hive with larva just one day old 84 00:09:10.520 --> 00:09:17.020 He carefully uses this long instrument to remove the larva and places one in each of the queen cell cups 85 00:09:29.580 --> 00:09:36.960 When he has several of these queen cell bars all made up with the wax cell cups, royal jelly and one day old larva 86 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:45.080 He places them upside down in a regular cell rack and then puts them in the starter box in the space left for this purpose 87 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:09.720 By now the worker bees in the starter box know that they are queenless and start immediately producing more royal jelly in each of the cells 88 00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:13.980 And also begin building the cells larger with more of their own beeswax 89 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:15.060 The queen bees are then placed in the starter box and are then placed in the queen cell box 90 00:10:15.060 --> 00:10:15.060 91 00:10:22.380 --> 00:10:29.660 Now Mr. LeBret puts the starter box in his shed out of the sun for 24 hours and brings out a different one 92 00:10:29.660 --> 00:10:35.380 He sets it down in front of the hive from which the worker bees were originally taken 93 00:10:41.260 --> 00:10:45.040 He opens the box, shakes the comb in front of the hive and puts the starter box in the hive 94 00:10:45.040 --> 00:10:49.160 He brushes all the bees off so they'll go back where they came from 95 00:10:54.640 --> 00:10:59.900 He then checks to see if the bees have taken over the queen cells that he originally started 96 00:11:19.900 --> 00:11:26.040 Mr. LeBret is used to being stung and doesn't seem to mind it, for actually the bee gets the worst of it 97 00:11:26.040 --> 00:11:30.540 The stinger of all worker bees has a barb so that it cannot be pulled out again 98 00:11:30.540 --> 00:11:34.100 Instead it is torn away and the bee flies off and dies 99 00:11:34.100 --> 00:11:41.860 Here you can see the venom sac still throbbing and if it is flicked away without being squeezed the sting will be less severe 100 00:11:41.860 --> 00:11:46.340 Being stung many times is just all in a day's work with Mr. LeBret 101 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:54.140 Here you can see how the bees have started building up the cells so everything seems to be going along fine 102 00:11:55.400 --> 00:12:03.560 Now that the bees have accepted these larvae in the starting box, have fed them more royal jelly and have started building up their cells larger 103 00:12:03.560 --> 00:12:07.140 They are ready to be placed in what is called the finishing colony 104 00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:33.960 Here one of the queen cell bars is placed in the bottom position and about every third day will be moved one step higher 105 00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:41.840 By the end of the day the queen cell bars will be placed in the bottom position and will be moved one step higher 106 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:45.980 By the end of ten days the larvae are fully fed and the cells are sealed over 107 00:12:45.980 --> 00:12:53.260 This requires very careful timing as if any queens hatch in these finishing colonies before their cells are removed 108 00:12:53.840 --> 00:13:02.580 They will immediately run around and tear open and kill all the other queens as it is the custom amongst bees that there is only one queen to a hive 109 00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:10.960 And here you can see that a queen has hatched in this colony and torn apart all the other cells to Mr. LeBret's loss and sorrow 110 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:17.820 If two queens hatch at the same time and meet, they will fight to the death and the survivor will rule the colony 111 00:13:18.500 --> 00:13:22.960 The stingers of queen bees have no barbs so they can sting many times 112 00:13:25.340 --> 00:13:30.380 The worker bees never interfere unless it appears that the fight might be a draw 113 00:14:08.760 --> 00:14:10.160 Music 114 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:18.780 You can see why Mr. LeBret watches these queen cells so carefully and removes the top cell bar in time before any queens hatch 115 00:14:21.260 --> 00:14:29.440 Just see how busy these bees are and they pay no attention to them as they move the bars up one position and adds another at the bottom 116 00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:41.300 Music 117 00:14:56.220 --> 00:15:07.500 A day or so before the queens are due to hatch from the cells of the top cell bar, they are removed, cut away and collected in a bucket before being placed in the final hatching and mating boxes 118 00:15:12.420 --> 00:15:12.860 Music 119 00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:24.260 Here is one of the individual cells and right down at the end is the cap that the queen eats away in order to get out 120 00:15:27.760 --> 00:15:28.260 Music 121 00:15:40.920 --> 00:15:44.180 Over here on the fence wires are some of the mating boxes 122 00:15:46.060 --> 00:15:51.720 Mr. LeBret takes one queen bee cell and just sticks it right on the honeycomb in the box 123 00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:59.780 These mating boxes are strung along the wire to keep the coons and other small animals from stealing the honey 124 00:16:10.680 --> 00:16:11.240 Music 125 00:16:14.560 --> 00:16:21.720 Next he takes a package of regular worker bees and ducks them in the creek just long enough to get their wings wet so they can't fly 126 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:26.240 They're all pretty mad but there's not much they can do about it under the circumstances 127 00:16:27.260 --> 00:16:27.300 Music 128 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.060 Here they're dumped out into a bucket 129 00:16:52.780 --> 00:16:53.260 Music 130 00:16:58.020 --> 00:17:01.680 And one cup of wet bees put in each of these mating boxes 131 00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:11.540 However they soon dry out and forget their ducking and go about their business of taking over their duties of caring for this miniature hive 132 00:17:11.540 --> 00:17:16.360 and making all their preparations in anticipation of the hatching of their new queen 133 00:17:28.220 --> 00:17:28.780 Music 134 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:38.060 There is great excitement as the moment arrives and the new queen emerges from her cell 135 00:17:38.060 --> 00:17:41.980 Some of the bees immediately begin attending her 136 00:17:42.820 --> 00:17:51.580 The virgin queen makes her nuptial flight a few days later when she soars high into the air followed by a number of drones usually from another hive 137 00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:58.180 The strongest drone that can fly as high as the queen meets with her and then dies 138 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:01.620 Music 139 00:18:02.800 --> 00:18:11.420 After this one mating the queen returns to the hive to start laying fertilized eggs for the rest of her life at the rate of one or two thousand a day 140 00:18:12.180 --> 00:18:18.740 All will develop into female worker bees except those that are fed sufficient royal jelly to develop into future queens 141 00:18:18.740 --> 00:18:25.400 In the spring she will also lay some unfertilized eggs to produce drones or male bees 142 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:30.480 As the drones do no work in the hive and have no stingers to defend themselves 143 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:37.100 they are driven from the hive at the end of each season so they cannot use up valuable food during the cold winter months 144 00:18:37.100 --> 00:18:48.020 The young queen is now ready for shipment and is placed in this small queen cage with ten or fifteen nurse bees to take care of her and feed her during shipment 145 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:57.060 The cage is supplied with enough food for thirty days and is now ready for shipment usually by air to all parts of the world 146 00:19:02.140 --> 00:19:07.500 During the spring months Lakeshore Honey Company ships three to four hundred queen bees a day 147 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:21.360 Music 148 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:41.880 Mr. LeBret takes these cages and fastens them together 149 00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:45.140 Music 150 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.760 Puts on the necessary labels 151 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:06.620 Music 152 00:20:06.620 --> 00:20:12.820 And in this case as you can see these queens are headed for Cairo, Egypt 153 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:21.660 The breeding of queen bees is carried on similar to that of breeding new more desirable strains of flowers or cattle 154 00:20:21.660 --> 00:20:28.860 In a certain number are constantly shipped to various Lakeshore apiaries to be tested under different climatic conditions 155 00:20:28.860 --> 00:20:39.580 Here at Rosso, Minnesota near the Canadian border is a typical apiary where honey is produced as well as new strains of bees tested for honey producing qualities 156 00:20:39.580 --> 00:20:47.220 gentleness and other desirable characteristics of the worker bees in addition to the egg laying capacity of the queens 157 00:20:47.860 --> 00:20:50.320 Here's the setting up of a typical hive 158 00:20:50.860 --> 00:20:57.020 Ordinarily bees are bought by the pound and it takes about two pounds or ten thousand bees to start a hive 159 00:20:57.020 --> 00:21:05.420 Each spring the Lakeshore people ship about fifteen thousand packages like this or almost twenty tons of live bees 160 00:21:05.420 --> 00:21:10.300 Each package contains a supply of sugar syrup and a can 161 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:14.020 Music 162 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:20.800 Here's this small cage containing the queen which is set aside while the bees are dumped into the hive 163 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:33.740 Music 164 00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:42.560 The combs are then replaced 165 00:21:48.120 --> 00:21:48.700 Music 166 00:22:02.600 --> 00:22:07.520 And the paper capping cut away from the entrance to the new queens separate shipping cage 167 00:22:09.980 --> 00:22:10.560 Music 168 00:22:10.560 --> 00:22:19.100 There still remains a little sugar substance blocking the entrance which the bees can eat away in a matter of a few hours in order to release their new queen 169 00:22:19.100 --> 00:22:27.540 During this time they become accustomed to each other's characteristic odors as bees identify members of their own colony in that way 170 00:22:27.540 --> 00:22:31.700 And will fight off bees from other hives who try to steal their honey 171 00:22:33.600 --> 00:22:41.280 Additional supers are placed on top as the colonies grow larger for bees will swarm and the hive becomes overcrowded 172 00:22:42.320 --> 00:22:45.720 This hive is being started with just two supers 173 00:22:46.820 --> 00:22:52.840 The cover of shiny metal sheds the rain and reflects the heat of the hot summer sun 174 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:01.040 Music 175 00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:04.140 The bees are the ones who decide when it's time to raise new queens 176 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:10.120 They protect the new queen cells from the old queen but permit the new queens to fight amongst themselves 177 00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:16.240 The old queen usually leaves the hive for she knows she'll be attacked and probably killed by the new queen 178 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:24.540 She alights on a branch of some nearby tree and as a rule about half of the worker bees will follow and cluster around her forming a swarm 179 00:23:24.540 --> 00:23:29.200 Some of the bees act as scouts and look for a suitable location for a new hive 180 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:34.160 This may be in a hollow tree and then these bees are lost to the beekeeper 181 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:41.340 Or if he notices the swarm in time he can take it intact and give it a quick shake in front of a new hive 182 00:23:41.340 --> 00:23:48.100 Whereupon the bees usually take immediately to the new home and go about their business of producing more honey 183 00:23:52.180 --> 00:23:55.920 The combs of honey are collected and brought into the plant for processing 184 00:23:56.620 --> 00:24:02.680 They first go through a machine with a steam heated knife that cuts off the wax caps from both sides of the combs 185 00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:09.260 The combs are then placed in these racks momentarily until put into the centrifuge 186 00:24:09.260 --> 00:24:15.880 A large cylindrical container that will whirl them about rapidly until the last drop of honey is gone 187 00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:35.160 The honey is collected in these large five gallon tins 188 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:43.140 It is then shipped to the bottling plant which in this case is at Lima, Ohio 189 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:49.520 Here the attractive bottles that look like glass honey combs are first labeled 190 00:25:04.060 --> 00:25:13.780 Then filled with one pound of clarified and pasteurized honey which represents over 50,000 miles of flight by many worker bees 191 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:19.820 Here the no-drip caps are put on each bottle 192 00:25:31.760 --> 00:25:34.620 Fastened securely by machine 193 00:25:38.140 --> 00:25:46.440 And then moved along to the end of the line where they're packed in cartons ready for shipment to your table and mine 194 00:26:03.100 --> 00:26:08.760 Well I guess that's about all we have time for today. Hope you enjoyed it and be sure to stop around again 195 00:26:34.120 --> 00:26:35.520 Thank you for watching!