Honeybee FAQ
How a colony works, and why the honey bee matters to everything growing around you.
It depends entirely on the season. A colony going into winter might hold 10,000–20,000 bees; the same colony at the height of the summer flow can hold 50,000–60,000. The population rises and falls with the amount of forage available.
One queen, a few hundred drones in season, and everyone else — the workers.
The queen lays the eggs and holds the colony together with her pheromone. The drones are male, and their only job is to mate with queens from other colonies. The workers are all female and do everything else: clean, feed the young, build comb, guard the entrance, and forage.
Swarming is how one colony becomes two. When a colony has filled its space and is thriving, it raises new queens, and the old queen leaves with roughly half the workers to find a new home.
The cluster you see hanging on a branch is that group resting while scout bees look for somewhere permanent. It is a colony at its most gentle — they have no honey and no brood to defend.
Honey bees are fuzzy and a warm golden brown. Yellowjackets and paper wasps are smooth, shiny, brightly banded and have a narrow waist.
Nesting habits give it away too: a papery grey nest hanging under an eave is a wasp, and bees coming out of a hole in the ground in late summer are almost always yellowjackets. Honey bees nest in cavities — a hollow tree, a wall void, or a beekeeper’s box.
They cluster. The colony forms a ball around the queen and shivers its flight muscles to keep the centre near 90 °F, eating stored honey for fuel and rotating bees from the cold outside of the cluster to the warm middle. They do not hibernate, and on a mild winter day you may see them out on cleansing flights.
Usually within two miles of the hive, though they will fly further if they have to. A two-mile radius covers around 8,000 acres, which is why a single hive in a suburban back garden can be visiting flowers several neighbourhoods away.
In a good Ozarks year an established colony may produce 40–60 pounds of surplus above what it needs for itself, but weather and forage swing that number hard in both directions. The colony’s own winter stores come first; the surplus is what the beekeeper takes.
No. The western honey bee was brought over by European settlers in the 1600s. The continent’s native pollinators — bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees and thousands of other species — were here first, and are worth planting for too.
Aim for something in flower from early spring to first frost. In this region clover, dandelion, redbud, black locust, tulip poplar, sumac, clovers, coneflower, bee balm, goldenrod and asters all earn their place. Leaving a corner of the yard unmown does more good than most people expect — and skipping the insecticide during bloom does the most good of all.
Want to see this for yourself?
Our field days put you next to an open hive with someone who can explain what you’re looking at.