Hi,
My name’s Mariola and I’m a guardian of my family. I spend all days in the beehive’s gate, which the beekeeper calls “the entrance”.
On warm days, my antennae are very busy. It’s up to me to decide who enters our kingdom and who must be stopped.
Today, I want to tell you about the Great Day! To be honest, I was concerned at first, but now that the emotions have eased off I can say I’m delighted.
For starters, you need to know something: we need in a community where every bee has a specific role and place of work.
The life in the beehive takes place on honeycombs. Honeycomb cells are built of wax, and their dimensions are strictly defined. Wax-producing worker bees secrete wax and build our house intricately, scale by scale – just like you, humans, brick by brick. This year, the wax-producing workers have not started working yet, it’s too cold. But it’s ok, we’ve got plenty of room.
New bees are born on combs, we have storages of honey, nectar, pollen, propolis and water. And walking on the frames there is She, the Queen Mother, together with her court ladies. She is never alone, She wouldn’t survive, so She needs Her court ladies to feed and clean Her. She doesn’t do it herself. She just “smells”. She gives off scent, the smell of our house, we call it Mum’s love scent – it is also known as maternal substance. Every bee in our hive is soaked with this smell – it distinguishes us from the smell of other bee families. We recognise each other by it, and when we can’t smell it, we know that something bad happened.
Apart from emitting the smell, the Queen lays eggs from which our sisters and… brothers are born. There are no Brother Drones in our hive yet at this time of year. Perhaps it’s good, because as I see it, they only give you hard time. But I’ll tell you about it another time.
Every bee in the hive has a specific job to do, and they work in specific places. Apart from wax-producing bees I already mentioned, there are nurses of smaller kids, nurses of bigger kids, cleaners, honey makers, sisters that fan the hive, sisters that receive nectar, foragers and, of course, guardians – like me. Each sister knows what to do. And they all work to preserve our species.
So you can only imagine how nervous I got when I smelled smoke and heard human voices.
The entire beehive was removed from where it stood. The roof was lifted and everything was flooded by light. The beekeeper started taking our stocks away, comb by comb.
I was at my usual post at the entrance, so she didn’t take me, but she took all other sisters, babies, storages – I was scared I wouldn’t survive by myself. My life is so strongly tied to the rest of the colony that I’m sentenced to certain death when I’m left stranded.
Standing there scared at the old bottom board’s entrance, I suddenly smelled Her scent, the scent of the Queen. She must have been somewhere near. I raised my head, spread my wings and took off to follow the scent. I landed on a new clean entrance. It looked a bit different, and it had a light colour to it. I came inside the hive. The order of the frames was exactly the same as in the old one – it’s important. Other sisters were also disturbed, but they were calming down already. There was the family scent all around us. The Queen was safe, the sisters took up work. I calmed down. I went out on the entrance and decided to make a flight around the house.
It is beautiful, wooden, and warm. It has some patterns on it, FCA. I wonder what they mean? And there are our images. It’s going to be a good home, and from my post at the entrance, I’ll be giving you updates on our everyday life, and perhaps a bit of gossip.