HIVE PRODUCTS

The native British bees are also found in, say, places like Norway and Sweden, so they are well adapted to the British climate.

A bee keeper will selectively breed looking for a hive where the workers come out early in the morning when it is cooler rather than one which gets up later.  5,000 bees can be out forraging at any one time bringing back both pollen and nectar, and about 25,000 bees could in the hive making new cells etc.

Bees do feed each other and when they do they bend over their antenna.

Bees are very affected by smell and not only do they home by smell but the queen bee has a distinctive fragrance of her own.  The queen bee is fed by the younger bees who crowd around her with royal jelly.

Bees range far and wide and the taste of the honey is dependent upon the crop which they feed on.  Large yellow fields of rape give a very bland and not very nice honey, compared to say heather honey.

The colony itself is always subject to disease and fungal attack but considering the volume of activity and the closeness of the insects there is very little in the way of disease.  This is put down to the use of propolis which the bees use to seal their hives as well as lining each of their cells.  This propolis is disinfectant, it is obtained from the trees and is either their resin or the sticky residue you find at the end of buds (which is used to seal the buds).

These aromatics are mainly alcohols and are very antiseptic.

Candle making is relatively easy and the wax will give off the smell of the flowers from which it was gathered.  It will also vary infinitely in colour from almost white, through bright yellow (if the bees have fed on, say, Dandolion) to brown.