The honey bee has existed for about 100 million years on Earth. The oldest evidence for the existence of honey bees is an amber
fossil in the form of an enclosed in a fossilized resin drops and this “ur-bee” is only 2.95 mm large. The discovery was made in an
amber mine in the North of Burma.
The honey bee has always played an important role within the ecosystem and is responsible for the pollination of a variety of plants.
There are around 25 subspecies of Apis mellifera, referred to as bee races. The European breeds have emerged only in its present
form since the last ice age during the resettlement. The breed of the dark European bee spread here in the temperate and cooler
climates in Europe, for example in Germany, Austria and of Switzerland. The Alps have been a natural barrier against the warmth
of the southern countries.
Bees are insects which present a clear hierarchy and live in families, in the cells. In every family, there is a "Queen", whose only
mission is to ensure the spread of family. The family has also some male bees, called the drones. They are supposed to fertilize the Queen
only once and then die. The main group of the family consists of several thousand female bees, which are unfertile and acting as "workers".
The workers have many complex tasks, starting by storing the food, the storage and repair of the beehive and the care of the little ones.
Queen, drones and workers can be distinguished at a glance: the workers are smaller and weaker than the drones and the Queen. The Queen
is very large and strong, while the drone looks stocky, thicker and darker. Drones do not have poison sting, the sting of the Queen is
formed very weak, different from the workers. Most of the time of year the bee colony consists only of females: the Queen, the only one
who is oviparous (up to 2,000 eggs a day), and infertile workers, which gather pollen and nectar, raise the larvae and defend the stock
at risk.
Meli Malisiova
apiculture | agriculture
