The House, the Queen & the life of Honey Bees

         

Part - 3: The house, the Queen and life Bees:

The taste of honey might lure Little Typhoon to empathise with the life style and survival of this species. The next bee sting may not hurt her that much as was in the earlier occasion. In the course of this narration, some ideas got repeated or presented in reworded form; it was done only to lay emphasis.

To present an interesting picture on the life in a comb, I relied on the help of Mr. Charles Darwin to understand his theory of evolution, as far as the bee is concerned.

The honey bees are at ease in their natural habitat– of trees and caves. They have adopted well to live on high raise buildings, temple towers or in any of the apartments of a gated community or in any secured apiary. This continent of Philosophy must be proud, to have been hosting these honey makers, for the last 35 to 40 million years.

The bee colony comes in to being, with the help of a large contingent of worker bees and the queen bee. Moving en masse to the nest site, selected by worker bees, they start the construction activities. Each bee, eager to kick-start the ‘operation honey comb – brood & butter’ bends its back and strains its   wings to meet the schedule.

Their motto: If we can’t keep to time now, then   where is it to brood? A highly philosophical attitude indeed!

Once the honey comb is completed, the Queen bee starts her brooding season. The slogan at the door of her chamber, might it be catchy like this - “Feast, choose, mate and brood”

The queen bee has nothing to do, besides enjoying her royal comforts, except to start the rituals - a fresh life cycle for a horde of drones, worker bees and a queen bee to perpetuate the lineage in the comb or hive.  She has authority to decide her own schedule for withdrawing sperms from the Bank of Spermatheca -   to fertilize the eggs placed in the cells and to populate the comb/hive with the kind of bees, needed at that season. Just like ordering from a menu card!

The Queen bee flies out in search of suitors having the right DNA typing , being careful to avoid offspring with mixed ‘ her’ & ‘his’ traits. She wants the brood only with ‘her traits’.

Her selection process, to choose a mate is very elaborate and should be faultless, to such an extent as, to avoid dating & courtship with a boyfriend from her own comb.

The reigning Queen has a diagnostic tool, an airborne-chromatographic column, sensitive even to less than a pbm (parts per billion molecules) to deal with such complications. But she is never in a hurry and diligently undertakes several flights to accomplish this task.  She knows perfectly well that from among the laid eggs, the worker bees will raise a Queen Bee.

The Queen bee, in all probability, may parley with one or more drones and on more than one dating flight. The queen and these drones might have at least one identical sex alleles to produce mother-type drone eggs (Motype).

The hand of fate deals the male bees with a cruel blow – they are condemned to death after mating with the queen bee. Queen and worker bees are born from fertilized eggs, with a valid parental stamping.

Only Mr. Charles Darwin might be able to throw some light on this genetic exclusivity & its impact on his theory.

A bee colony has - one queen, a few thousand fertile drones and a large contingent of sterile female workers.  Yet among drones & female workers of the same species (or) between drones & female workers of different species, a subtle difference exists in the chromosome counts: The female of any species has twice the number of chromosome count, compared with their male counter parts - The les miserables.

Bees, in a comb, are politically naive; they select and nurture a Queen and instead of ruling over ‘her’, they queue up in front of ‘her’ as spineless citizens. As well they could have done with out ‘her’.

May be, we the human beings  have ‘apiared’ that model too exactly, electing and regretting our impulsive choices? Both of us have to fight to keep what is ours - Honey Bees its savings and human beings their ethos.

It would be a utopian world, if the honey Combs could send down a part of honey, held in stock once a month and unasked. Then bees can live, in peace, like an honest taxpayer!

In the absence of such a mechanism, the combs are plundered leaving the waxy structure to stand mute testimony to their disillusionment against any ‘kind’ which is not ‘kind’ to them – humans and wild animals.

The bees in the comb are as selfish as the ants, much against the popular belief - that both are social workers. Both live in a colony and for a colony; are ruled by their respective Queens, whom these poor insects themselves, select, foster and crown - only to die, at the end, without even a posthumous honour.

Yes. They are social workers with in their respective colonies.

When the weather becomes too cold for comfort, all the worker bees and drones assume the role of comfort providers, to keep the Queen warm and comfortable.

They start the game of shivering in unison to generate warmth. First, for the comfort of the queen and then for their own sake - like programmed toys or persons afflicted with ‘dengue’ fever, doing the St. Vitus dance.

They strive to maintain the ambience near 25°C, when the queen is observing a winter-pause in raising a fresh brood. The brooding (laying) period of the queen bee is important and demanding - important as another set of workers are needed and demanding because the worker bees  have to carry on with this comb/hive warming  exercises, at a feverish rate to maintain the central heating around  35°C.

It is a pity that they have not learned the art of keeping themselves warm by simply lighting a safety lamp, using a fuel mixture of honey and wax!

The worker bees manage to stay comfortable, with out affecting the routine. They take turns to change duties and share the cold and the warmth - avoiding hypothermia for those exposed to the cold air at the periphery of the comb.

For the worker bees, the winter season is celebration time with sumptuous feast of honey - with out rationing. The combs look lean and compact.
                           

Only the Himalayan honey bees have managed to live in nests, at high altitudes and in frozen landscapes. The largest of the living honey bee nesting in the highest mountain range, with out a winter huddle!