This area is our school apiary

Worker bees bringing pollen into the colony

CVJS Apiary - March 
Honey = 10% full

As the weather warms above 10°C the worker bees will leave the hive, returning to a cluster of bees during cold evenings to keep the queen bee warm. 
A hive is kept at a constant temperature of around 35°C by the worker bees. To do this, they vibrate their bodies to generate heat. This uses a lot of energy so we need to leave honey for them to eat!

Watch the video on the right >>>> and look at the colours in the list above.
 Worker bees busily bringing in pollen (protein) into the hive.
Can you identify the plant they collected it from?

CVJS Apiary - April
Honey = 30% full

As the warm weather appeared early this year, so the flowers followed. The bees have been busy, growing in numbers and storing honey.

Now the weather is warmer, the bees use their wings to fan the hive and keep it cool during the day!

As they store nectar from flowers, they convert it to honey by adding enzymes. 


Nectar from flowers stored in comb

Now they remove some of the water from the nectar using heat and their wings. Once it is thicker, they seal the cells using wax (see below).

Capped honey, ready to extract and eat!
 

CVJS Apiary - May
Honey = 50% full

As the plants continue to flower, the honey stores are growing rapidly. 

Bees typically cap honey when the water content is between 17% and 18%. This is because bees use wax to cap the honey cells to preserve the honey and prevent it from absorbing excess moisture and potentially fermenting.




Once the bees have filled a super box, they will continue to fill the other frames - nailed together by the children during Forest School!!

Next month we plan to extract our Spring Honey - estimate how many jars we might produce.
 

CVJS Apiary - June
Honey = 80% full (lots of honey)

CVJS Apiary - July
Honey = ?

CVJS Apiary - August
Honey = ?

CVJS Apiary - September
Honey = ?

CVJS Apiary - October

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