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Be-lavie

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

THE BEE FARMER: A HONEYBEE COLONY EXPERIENCE

22nd July 2019

Last Updated on 29th March 2021 by Bejal

When someone says fancy an experience with some honey bees, I guess we don’t all put our hands up at once, or do we? Well, not me or so I thought anyway!!!

In This Article

Toggle
    • THE STORY SO FAR
    • (OR PRIOR TO THIS DAY!!)
    • THE BEE FARMER
    • HONEY BEES AT CATTOWS FARM
    • HONEY BEE COLONY VISIT EXPERIENCE
    • LETS TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD OF THE HONEYBEE
    • INTERESTING FACTS BEE FACTS
    •   THE BEE FARMER HONEY AND PRODUCTS
  • “If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
    •  Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee
    • PIN FOR LATER

THE STORY SO FAR

(OR PRIOR TO THIS DAY!!)

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

A few years back, I had a very bad experience with a bee sting, which consequently left me extremely nervous around bees. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the benefit and importance of bees but I just couldn’t help run a mile if one was in the vicinity or literally flap around. It’s totally embarrassing in public but how do you cope with such a phobia when your quite outdoorsy! Well in steps David, The Bee Farmer….

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

THE BEE FARMER

A chance encounter with David at Wigston News & Deli in Leicester, persuaded me to go and face my fear of bees and see if I could ever be OK with accepting these tiny flying friends back into my life! I was keen to arrange a Hive visit with The Bee farmer.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

After all, it seems David, breaths and sleeps honey bees and has over thirty years’ experience in Bee keeping and additionally has around 100 bee hives, not all in the same place obviously!

Meet David, The Bee Farmer below, genius branding, don’t you think? !!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

HONEY BEES AT CATTOWS FARM

We reserved a place with The Bee farmer for the warmer month of July as David explained Bees like sunny climes. The air temperature promised a very lovely day however rain was forecast but it did manage to hold off, this is why the experience is confirmed a couple of days prior to attending.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

The colony visit took place at Cattows Farm, is part of the National Forest in North West Leicestershire, where they have a huge variety of pick your own fruits such as Strawberries, Gooseberries, Raspberries, Red and Blackcurrants, which provide the bees with nectar and pollen.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

The bees do their bit by pollinating the fruit, enabling the plant to make more good quality fruit. You may be familiar with Cattows farm during autumn when they have a huge glut of pumpkins, the bees enjoy the season change to pollinate the pumpkin flowers as food supply is running short around this period.

HONEY BEE COLONY VISIT EXPERIENCE

Once your experience is confirmed, The Bee Farmer will ask you to bring a pair of marigolds with you and some shoes that cover your ankles, for example wellies or hiking boots. The Bee keeper suits will be provided and you’ll be shown how to put them on, David will ensure that your all sealed and good to go!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

The Hive is a couple of minutes walk from the meeting point and in all honesty, for me this was the most nerve wrecking part, walking and about to delve into the unknown.

Once you arrive at the hive, David uses a smoker (containing burnt sawdust) to disperse smoke around the hive and calm the bees down before he opens it up.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

The aim of this experience is to give you a taste of bee keeping and once David opens up the hive, he talks you through a whole host of interesting facts and answers all your burning questions, with enthusiasm and passion! You’re totally transformed into the world of bee keeping and for the majority I’d actually forgotten all about my nervous persona around bees! We learnt about the different stages of the brood, the caste of bees, how to handle the bees should you wish with careful supervision from David at a calm and steady pace.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

One of the things that surprised me was just how heavy the frames (where the worker bees build wax onto) are! The photos will show how hard I was concentrating not to drop the frame as David explained that each hive has between 40,000-70,000 honey bees!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer
The hives are inspected once a week and it was great The Bee Farmer can incorporate this into the experience sessions.

I was fascinated by the worker bees. If they are born and put to work during the busy season, they might live to around six weeks or less. If they are born in a non-peak season, they might survive to seven weeks old. Winter bees have a higher blood protein and a fatter body, meant to produce heat for the queen. Winter bees can live anywhere from four – six months.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

A worker bee collects honey from foraging bees and tend to the bee larvae. As the worker bee gets older she is promoted to the role of foraging bee.

LETS TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD OF THE HONEYBEE

When a queen is about  6 – 16 days old, she’s ready to mate and takes herself out on a little mating flight finding herself about 20 suitors.

The male bees known as drones, will congregate in DCAs (Drone Congregational Areas) where they will mate with a queen flying close to the vicinity.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

A little graphic but the drone will insert his appendage (endophallus) into the queen’s sting chamber and the process rakes around five seconds and upon disengagement, the drones endophallus is ripped off, which kills the drone.

The queen honeybee can hold about 100 million sperm in her spermiduct, some she chooses to fertilise immediately but the rest five – six million can be stored in her spermathecal, which can remain in good condition for up to four years of life! Now that is genius!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

A fertilised egg becomes a worker bee and if it doesn’t then essentially it’s a drone.

When queen bee lays her egg in one of these empty cells, it remains an egg for three days and then turns into a larvae. The larvae is fed royal jelly by the worker bees to ensure the larvae stick to the frame.

Once all the queen bees sperm has gone, the colony will begin to raise a new queen and the cycle of ensuring the survival of the colony continues!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

Unfortunately I didn’t see a queen during my experience (very sad face). The Bee Farmer thought she had possibly swarmed so he was going to re-introduce a new queen in the hive.

The whole experience lasts around two hours at the end The Bee Farmer ensures you’re safe to take off your suits once back at the meeting point!

INTERESTING FACTS BEE FACTS

1The Honeybees genus and species in Europe and the UK is Apis Mellifera

2Honeybees are known as Arboreal, meaning they are tree dwellers

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

3Bees have exo-skeletons (meaning their skeleton is on the outside and exposed if you look closely).

4Bee life cycles vary; Drone bees don’t live very long at all as their main purpose is to mate with the queen. Worker bees ultimately live to six – seven weeks depending on season they’re born, but can live up to six months if born in winter!

5 The different coloured (jam tart-like) appearance on the frames in the hives, represent the different flowers the honeybees have visited for nectar and pollinated.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

6If you partially close your eyes, this will give you pretty much a good indication of how much honeybees can see! They tend to see things more towards the UV end of the spectrum too!

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

7 In her prime, the queen bee will lay around 2,000 eggs per day, which is actually more than her own body weight. The eggs are roughly the size of half a grain of rice!

8Royal jelly is secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands on the side of worker honey bees heads to feed the larvae in the colony.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

  THE BEE FARMER HONEY AND PRODUCTS

 The Bee Farmer uses his honey and wax from the bees in a whole line of products including, natural honey, lip balms, pet care products, polishes and candles. If you’re based in Leicestershire. You can shop in person at Ahsby Town Hall and Wigston News & Deli. You can also shop online at

The Bee Farmer : http://www.thebeefarmer.co.uk/webshop/

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

 I always knew Honeybees were very important for survival, but since my experience with The Bee Farmer, I’ve acquired a whole new level of respect for these tiny creatures.

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

 Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

For further information regarding honeybee experiences, bee keeper course or any other enquires, please contact David at The Bee Farmer via his website 

Disclaimer: My experience was kindly gifted by The Bee Farmer, however all views, opinions and photography are my own and therefore remain a copyright of be-lavie.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

Right folks, it’s over to you, how do you feel about bees? Did you enjoy my account of the honey bee experience? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to know.

A Honeybee Colony Experience with The Bee Farmer

Á Bientôt…

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  • The Bee Farmer, A Honeybee Colony Experience
  • The Bee Farmer, A Honeybee Colony Experience
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12 Comments
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Bejal

I’m Bejal aka Be, an ex-scientist turned travel writer and digital content creator. I have travelled to 6 continents, visited 70 plus countries, including an around the world trip, making me quite the expert in crafting intricate itineraries. I love to discover some of the world's more remote destinations and stay in some incredible hidden location eco-hotels. My aim is to transport you, my audience, to inspirational and cultural global spots that are less visited and allow you to see the 'real' and authentic side of destinations through detailed guides with a sprinkling of luxury. The spotlight is on eco-friendly responsible experiential travel with lifelong memories.

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  • abbeylouisarose
    23rd July 2019

    It sounds like you thoroughly embraced this experience despite your previous bad experience with bees – that’s something to be very proud of! I read this post with so much interest, it seems like you learned a hell of a lot! I knew that the whole planet would be in serious trouble if the bees were wiped out but I had no clue about bee life spans or the sheer number of bees in each frame of the hive! David sounds incredibly knowledgable and welcoming, putting real value into his experiences! It’s great to hear that they’re a part of normal hive maintenance too and that the bees aren’t put under any undue stress because of their human visitors! A really fantastic and informative post, thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply
    • Bejal
      abbeylouisarose
      23rd July 2019

      Thanks for your lovely comment Abbey and stopping by! I have to say it’s one of the most stand-out experiences to date that I’ve done and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get an intro to bee keeping.

      Reply
  • Cristina - Memories of the Pacific
    23rd July 2019

    What an interesting experience, Be! Now, I don’t know if I’d dare to go through it myself. I’m just like you, I respect bees but being around them is not my thing.
    Thanks so much to share what you learnt with us, as I said, it’s very interesting 🙂

    Reply
  • louiseloveslondon
    23rd July 2019

    You are probably the bravest person, I know, Bejal! I am not sure I dared doing this being afraid of bees too!
    But you got to face your fears, right?
    Louise x

    Reply
  • 1dish4theroad
    23rd July 2019

    Wow, Bejal – what an incredible way to overcome your bee trauma. Sounds like a fascinating and educational experience too!..

    Reply
  • Mostlyfoodandtravel
    23rd July 2019

    This sounds like an amazing experience and well done you for facing your fears. This brought back my biology class memories. I knew Bee Farmer was local because I have bought it a few times from Gelato Village but didn’t realise we had an amazing place like this in Leicestershire. Thanks for sharing

    Reply
  • Kerry LifeandLoves
    24th July 2019

    Well I loved reading about this! What fascinating little creatures they are! I didnt realise they had such short lives. Bless them

    Reply
    • Bejal
      Kerry LifeandLoves
      25th July 2019

      Aww thanks Kerry!Bees are really incredible and learning about them was just so interesting! Such important little creatures!

      Reply
  • Simply Rasha
    29th July 2019

    Well done Be, I don’t think I could ever be that up close and personal with so many bees! Thoroughly enjoyed reading the bit about the honeybee world, I learned some new things today!

    Reply
    • Bejal
      Simply Rasha
      30th July 2019

      Thanks Rasha! It wasn’t as bad as I thought and in the end really enjoyed it. Aren’t they just fascinating creatures!

      Reply
  • thetravelsofmrsb
    3rd August 2019

    What a unique experience! Your photos are fantastic!

    Reply
    • Bejal
      thetravelsofmrsb
      4th August 2019

      Such a worthwhile experience for me on a personal level and thankyou! Bees are remarkable easy to take pics of even though they move fast!

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Bejal aka Be
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Hello, I'm Be, an ex-scientist turned travel writer and digital content creator having travelled to 70 plus countries, all over the globe. My aim is to transport you to less visited inspirational and cultural global spots showing off the 'real' authentic side of destinations through detailed guides with a sprinkling of luxury. The spotlight is on eco-friendly responsible travel with lots of coffee spots and veggie food thrown in!

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