What's the buzz on beekeeping?

As spring comes to Rock Hill, bees have begun to buzz. Across the nation, these workers have made national headlines because of an unknown disorder that is killing hives. Herald intern and Winthrop University student Adam MacInnis tells how he got into be
By Adam MacInnis · The Herald - Updated 04/10/07 - 12:26 AM

About six years ago, I picked up the newspaper and read that the Clemson Extension Office was offering a course on beekeeping.

Pure Royal Jelly

Photo by Andy Burriss • The Herald

I was home-schooled at the time and a little bored, so I thought, "Why not?"

Taking the course was a great experience from start to finish. Through it, I learned what incredibly complex creatures bees are.

For example, in order for bee eggs to hatch, a hive must be kept around 90 degrees. So in summer, some of the bees will fan their wings to keep it cool. In winter, they cluster together for warmth.

The beekeeping instructors also took us on a field trip to open up the hives and get a hands-on feel for it.

At first, I was a little nervous about opening a hive with tens of thousands of bees inside, but I found out they are surprisingly quiet -- most of the time. Wearing a veil and suit does offer a degree of security.

To keep the bees calm, you light a smoker, which is usually fueled by burlap or pine needles. The smoke causes the bees to eat honey. With full stomachs, they are less likely to sting.

When all the world is crazy, there's something relaxing about going to the bees and seeing the order in a hive.

It's a great hobby.

The workers

The majority of bees in the hive are called worker bees. They have that name for a reason. These sterile female bees do all the chores in the hive from tending to the larvae, making comb, collecting pollen and nectar and protecting against intruders. In the summer, these bees will literally work themselves to death in three to six weeks. In the winter, when there is nothing to forage, they live about 4 1/2 months.

The queen

Every hive has a queen, but only one. A queen starts out like just like worker bees, but as a larvae she is fed royal jelly, which is high in protein, for a longer period of time. As an adult, the queen lays all the eggs for the hive. In the summer, this can be around 1,500 eggs a day. A queen typically lives about two years.

The drones

Drones are male bees. They don't have stingers and do absolutely no work in the hive. Their sole purpose is to mate with the queen. Worker bees tend to them throughout the summer. Come winter, the workers refuse to feed the drones, leaving them to starve to death. In the summer, a drone lives about three months.

-- Source: http://plantphys.info/Plants_human/bees/bees.html

An unknown disorder that is killing honeybee colonies in more than 20 states has spread to South Carolina.

The disorder called "colony collapse disorder" causes bees to abandon the hive, leaving only a few adults and the bee larvae.

Scientists are baffled about what is causing the bees to do this.

Last August, Charlie Johnson, a Rock Hill beekeeper and president-elect for the South Carolina Beekeepers' Association, said he had about 40 hives. Now, he has about 15. He believes the disorder is the cause of the deaths.

"You can have a strong colony of bees, and within a week or two weeks, either there are no bees at all left in the colony or else there is just a small handful of them," he said. "Within a few days, they're gone."

Although the problem has only been recognized nationally in the last few months, Johnson said he thinks it has been around longer and people just didn't know what it was.

"People had a few colonies here and there disappear, and they didn't think anything of it," he said. "There wasn't anything major. Now all of a sudden when they're bringing out the symptoms, we've got beekeepers coming to us saying, 'I've had hives like that for a year and a half, two years now.'"

Locally, he said several people have reported hive losses to the disorder.

"We're finding no dead bees," Johnson said. "They just disappear."

For crops such as apples and vine fruit that depend on bees for pollination, this creates a crisis, Johnson said. Wild bees were killed by mites in the 1980s, which created a dependence on beekeepers, he said. This disorder complicates things.

"We are in a severe shortage right now, and it is going to impact our fruits, especially vine crops," Johnson said.