Beekeeping Talk

P. Michael Henderson
April 17,2025

I gave a talk about bees to a group of six women today.  One of the women had contacted me about a year ago but our schedules didn't mesh until today.  Last year she wanted to do the visit in the middle of summer and I explained how hot it got in the bee suits.

I began by talking about bee biology.  I've given talks to women's groups before and they seem to always be surprised that the majority of the bees in a hive are female.  When I discuss how the drones are unable to feed themselves and depend on the female worker bees to feed them, I always see knowing smiles.

Next, I talk about the hybrid bees we have here in Villa Park and that they can deal with varroa mites in the hive - and that varroa mites can kill a European hive.

Finally, I got them into bee suits and took them to the bee yard, where I opened a small hive to show them a brood frame, and then a mature hive to show a honey frame.

Anyway, here are some pictures.  They were taken by one of the women, who then airdropped them to me.

No one took pictures during my talk, but they got excited when we suited up.  Here's the group.  I had four full suits (one was for me) and three jackets.  One of the jackets is really cheap - you can't even remove the veil to wash it.  I had enough gloves for everyone.

Two of the participants.

I took them out to the bee yard and opened a new hive that I recently put a swarm into.

Here's the hive.  I've removed one frame of brood to show the group.

Here, I'm holding that frame.

The brood pattern on the frame is not good.  There are a few late brood but no larvae or eggs.  Something happened to the queen.

There's an empty queen cell on the frame.  Looks like the bees made an emergency queen.  I don't know what could have happened to the queen.  If they hatched a queen, the new queen would have to fly out to mate and then return and start laying.  If there's no queen in a few days, I'll have to merge the hive with another hive.

Next, I went into a mature hive to show them honey on a frame.  It's still early in they year so there won't be much.  The frame I'm pulling out has some capped honey but the rest of the cells are filled with unripe honey.  The hive is doing well and will probably have honey to harvest in another month or so.

Here's Sharon holding one of the honey frames.

A closer look at that frame.

That was about it.  We went back and everyone peeled off their suits.  I was happy it was not a really hot day because those suits can be quite warm.  I think the group enjoyed the talk and demonstration.