I was mowing the grass last week so my wife would let me play golf the next day and I saw a honeybee. A real, live honeybee. Not a bumblebee or another pretender, but a honeybee. Last year, I didn’t see a single one in my yard.
Honeybees, as most are aware, have been having a hard time of it in recent years. No one knows for sure, but their decline in numbers has been blames on several factors including pesticides, changing agricultural practices and disease.
Perhaps the same things that have caused the decline of bobwhite quail also have contributed to the honeybees’ woes.
Number one on the list is fescue grass. Fescue – which the United States Government forced on farmers as the miracle crop of the future – was anything but. Fescue rapidly takes over and snuffs out native, warm season grasses and flowering plants like clover. I always keep some clover in my yard. That’s where I see the bees.
Intense insecticide practices also harm both birds and insects and I avoid them when possible.
Bees are serious pollinators and without pollination, plants and vegetables don’t grow. Bees are so valuable to crop production that many farms are now “renting” hives from beekeepers.
Below are some interesting facts about honeybees.
– Honeybees can fly at speeds up to 15 mph.
– A honeybee colony can have as many as 60,000 residents at its peak
– A single worker bee produces only about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
– A queen honeybee can live up to 4 years and lays as many as a million eggs during that time.
– Outside of the primate family, bees use the most complex symbolic language on earth.
– Drones, the male honeybees, die immediately after mating.
– Honeybees maintain a constant temperature of 93 degrees within their hives year round.
– An industrious bee may visit 2,000 flowers in a single day.
Personally, I have always admired the little fellows and my vegetable garden and I hope to see many more this summer.