Foraging and Flowers
Foraging worker bees (field bees) spend all day, everyday, collecting nectar, pollen, water, and propolis. Most of the workers collect nectar and pollen. Only a few collect water and propolis. Workers can travel as far as 10 kilometres to do this, but the hive will not make much honey if they must go a long way to collect the nectar. It is best if the bees can find what they need close by (less than 2 kilometres). The closer the bees are to the flowers, the more honey they will make. They can make more short trips in a day than long ones.
The worker bee collects nectar from certain flowers. She sucks the nectar up with her proboscis, and stores it in her honey sac.
The worker bee collects pollen all over her body on tiny hairs while she crawls over the flowers. The worker then brushes the pollen with her front legs into the pollen baskets on her back legs.
Foraging field bees collect water from the closest place, sometimes from puddles or water drops on plants. They suck it up with their proboscis and carry it back to the hive in their honey sacs.
To get propolis, workers chew certain plant buds and shoots. This material is carried back to the hive in the pollen baskets. At the hive it is made into propolis (bee glue). It is used for filling holes and sticking everything together.
If a foraging worker bee finds a good source of nectar or pollen she can tell the other workers where it is. She cannot talk, so she does a dance on the comb in the hive. The kind of dance and how it is done will tell the other bees what direction to go, and how far to fly.
Activity: Bee Dance
Take the picture below and with a partner go to the bee yard and stand behind a hive. Remember that in this picture the top of the frame where the bee is dancing is the direction of the sun. Also remember that the angle that the bee crosses the frame is the direction of the food from the hive. In what direction is the food?
In this example the bee runs at a 45 degree angle from vertical. What direction is the food from the hive?
| Some Plants That Bees Collect Nectar and Pollen From | Some Plants That Bees Do Not Collect Nectar and Pollen From |
| Trees: Aru, African Tulip, Australian Gum, Koola, Buni, Vasa, Liki, Coconut, Gliricidia, Christmas Tree, Rain Tree, Kapok, Pink Cassia, Crab Claw, Mangrove Fruit Trees: Five Corner, Cherry, Citrus trees, Papaw, Mango, Cut nut, Guava, Coffee Vegetables: Corn, Bok choy, Watermelon, Cucumber, Pumpkin, Legumes (beans, peanuts), Rock Melon, Avocado, Cabbages, Tomato, Eggplant, Rice, kumara Weeds/ Flowers: Small Daisy, Coral Vine, Mile a Minute, Nila Grass, Yellow Broom, White Rats Tail, Sticky Stem, Mimosa, Marigold, Water Lilly | Frangipani
|
This list is not complete. There are thousands of different flowering plants and trees in the Solomon Islands. Many of these produce nectar and pollen that honeybees collect. Remember to look at flowers and to write down the name in English, Language, or Pijin of any flower that you see a honeybee visit.
Activity: Assignment
Look for bees on flowers and make a record of what kinds of flowers the bees go to. Bring the names to class (both in English, Pijin or language if possible) so they can be recorded on a piece of chart paper and new ones added to your list.
Activity: Beehive Observation
Go to the beehives and in pairs, open the hive and find and identify the 3 kinds of bees. Note: Drone bees are not present in all hives. As well the queen may sometimes be hard to find
Try and identify worker bees doing all of the different jobs or roles. Look for: nurse bees feeding larva, field bees coming back with pollen in their pollen baskets, guard bees meeting returning field bees at the doorway or fanning the hive to keep it cool etc.
Activity: Quiz
Try to answer the question from the quiz you did at the beginning of the topic. Hopefully you will now know most of the answers.