The African Bee: Sweet with a Sting

By Paul Ward

This article has been written after seeing a video of over 4,000 of these little guys been drowned in diesel in the States. If they are all killed the world will be in serious trouble as all our food production will come to a halt. We all know them and respect them as we see them buzzing around from flower to flower on warm days. The African honey bee has been apart of all of our lives growing up we have all come into contact with that sting, and we all know the flavour of the honey they produce but what do we really know of this small super power?

The African Honey Bees

This amazing bee is one-part ancestry to the Africanised bee or killer bee, this is down to the sting being more venomous than a single European bee. African bees respond quicker when disturbed like most creatures from Africa. The will also chase an intruder from the hive to great distances. The African honey bee produces less honey than the European bee, but beekeepers have no choice but to have African bees as they will invade and take over a European nest.

The Life of a Bee

Bees face a daily challenge that of the balance of energy and the replenishment in the pursuit of nectar. The bees operate at high temperatures.  So during foraging they try and find nectar at higher temperatures making them less viscous and easier to take in. The down side to this is that there is a higher concentration of sugar in more viscous nectar. The advantage to the bees favouring the less viscous nectar is the quantity increase during the harvest time.

The Hive

The hive normally consists of three types of bees that being the Queen who produces more of the hive, the drone who is male and has no stings who fertilises the queen and the worker who is female without a full reproductive capacity that gathers the pollen.

We Need the Bees

Bees are vital to the survival of humans as they pollinate the plants we rely on for living. If bees were to go extinct we would lose tea, coffee, nuts, fruit and even cotton which makes up 35% of the world textile industry.  Animals would slowly disappear and our whole way of eating would change as we would have to find ways to sustain ourselves.

For more information and to get involved in saving the plant go to Planet Bee. We all have to take some responsibility to save the one thing that could have a larger impact than losing oil and that is saving the honey bee.

**And of course the African Honey Bee loves the Zimbabwean Flame Lily**