We went to visit the Irish Seed Savers in Scariff, east Co. Clare, the other week. They were holding a one day workshop on bee keeping for just 15 euro, so it seemed daft not to go. I didn't know very much at all about bees prior to this course, except that there are a lot of them in the field at the moment feasting on the buddlia, willowherb and vetch, so I was surprised to learn of the machinations of a hive. What a matriarchy! Worker bees are all female, as is the Queen (obviously), and these ladies give the poor male drone bees a bit of a short shrift. Their only job it seems is to hang around eating honey until a Queen comes along requiring their, erm, services. She flies higher and higher to determine the strongest and most worthy drones, mates with 20 or so mid flight, and toddles off home again while the drones that got lucky immediately collapse and die. As for those that didn't make the grade, once the season is over, the ladies simply pull off their wings and kick them out of the hive. Poor fellas.
Though I did start to feel sorry for the Queen too, who seems incapable of doing anything for herself, including flying and feeding. Her sole function, once she's embarked on her maiden voyage and banked enough male drone sperm to last the rest of her life, is to lay eggs of the gender appropriate to the size of the comb cell she's squatting over.
Big cells demand female, fertilised eggs, while the small cells are for unfertilised, fatherless male drone eggs, and she'll lay up to 2,000 a day. It's no great surprise to learn that she requires regular massages from her workers.
Here's a picture of our tutor Peter Bourke showing us the hives at Seed Savers.
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