Did you know there is an International Bee Day? Well I didn’t either till I attended this festival in Goldsboro. Here I learned how important bees are to our survival.

Queen bees live 2 to 3 years, the longest of any in the hive. She mates once, and upon her return from mating she is able to deposit 1500 to 2000 eggs daily for the rest of her life. Quite a feat.

The festival had much information on swarm boxes, how to cap honey from the comb, and one of the beekeepers explained how to develop Queen Bees out of cells.

Here are some other interesting tidbits regarding bees:

• Honey bees have two stomachs – one for eating and one for storing nectar.
• Honey bees can fly at 15 mph.
• Queen bees develop in 16 days.
• The average life of a honey bee during working season is 3 to 6 weeks.
• There are 3 kinds of bees working in a hive: Queen, Worker and Drone.
• A beehive in summer can have as many as 50,000 to 80,000 bees.
• A honeybee must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
• It would take one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world.
• Honey is both antibacterial and anti-fungal.
• The average worker bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

This active group is always looking for new members and give classes on beekeeping in January.

If interested contact https://oldwaynesborough.org/ for further information.

See you at the hive.