“They are the most studied organism on earth, after humans,” says Alexandra Bartsch of her favorite insect, the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Bartsch, a long-time bee-keeper and owner of The Lexington Bee Company, is passionate about bees and educating students and homeowners about them. She’s not alone: human’s fascination with honey bees goes back thousands of years, with illustrations of bee-keeping that are more than 4,000 years old.
Honey bees form complex societies. A typical hive has 60,000-80,000 bees! Individuals are related, but due to different nutrition, some eggs develop to be a queen instead of a worker. The average lifespan of a worker bee is just a few weeks in the summer months, while a queen can live for several years. The queen is responsible for laying eggs and keeping up the population of the hive. Worker bees initially do jobs inside the hive and later in their lives forage for nectar and pollen. Remarkably, the age at which worker bees become foragers can change depending on the hive’s needs. Master beekeeper and teacher Tony Pulsone, the current president of the Middlesex County Beekeepers Association (MCBA) says when he started beekeeping he would spend hours just watching the bees and keeps learning something new from them every year.
Honey bees are crucial for supporting the human food environment, as they pollinate a great majority of the fruits and vegetables we eat, including apples, pumpkins, squash, broccoli, potatoes and onions. Barscht, from Lexington Bee, reports that after hives were put up at the Interfaith garden, which grows food to donate to the Lexington Food pantry, the amount of food grown for donation literally doubled. Backyard beekeepers enjoy the added benefit of honey, which is the food storage supply for a colony. A productive hive in the right environmental conditions can produce many tens of pounds of honey in excess of their over-wintering needs. Because of the weight of honey, bee-keeping can involve a lot of heavy lifting.
While humans have been cultivating honey bees for millennia, these insects are just a few of over 20,000 bee species in the world. Honey bees are not native to North America. About 3,600 bees are native to North America and many of them are in decline. According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, North American species range in length from about 1/12 inch to more than 1 inch (2–25 mm). They vary in color from dark brown or black to red or metallic green and blue; some have stripes of white, orange, yellow, or black; and some even have opalescent bands. The vast majority of native bees are solitary and do not live in hives. Native bees are also pollinators on foods important to humans, including squashes, pumpkins, gourds and sunflowers.
While beekeeping has been practiced for millennia, there are a number of things to learn before starting your own colony. Anyone interested in starting beekeeping should consider taking a class – most start in January or early February, as new colonies typically arrive in April. The MCBA also has monthly meetings discussing beekeeping topics and peering inside hives. For high school students, there is a bee club at Lexington High School (LHS), supervised by Barscht. They maintain hives located on conservation land like Cotton Farm.
Nicole Mei, one of the presidents of the LHS bee club, says “Without bees we wouldn’t have lots of foods like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, etc. These are some of my favorite foods so I’m amazed how bees can do this much for our agriculture. The thing I love most about the bee club is that I get to learn how bee products are made. It’s nice how I get to be part of it and help make them too.” Barscht reports that, by herself or together with the LHS bee club, she maintains roughly 50 hives in Lexington.
How many people keep bees in Lexington? It is not clear. There is a request to register your colonies with the MCBA but this is not mandatory. Bartsch admits it is more difficult (and expensive) to keep bees now than 20 years ago when she first started. To start with a new hive is “bumping up around $1,000” when factoring in the beekeeping supplies, hives and the colonies. And, it is harder to keep bees alive nowadays– statistics vary, but 40-45% of bee colonies are lost nationwide every winter. Aside from habitat loss, a parasite called varroa mites is affecting honey bee populations. One reason the MCBA tries to track local hives is to keep tabs on such infestations.
For those who would like to support honey bees without the manual labor of beekeeping, having flowering plants in the yard will help. Bartsch says that while shopping for plants, if she sees a plant covered with bees “I always buy it,” since it means bees already like it. Early flowering plants like crocus and skunk cabbage help when the nectar supply is low. Since honey bees can roam for miles away from their hive, anyone who plants or encourages clover in their lawn, or replaces grass with flowering plants, is helping them. Native bees are helped by replacing lawn grass with flowering plants, avoiding pesticides, and allowing leaves or a log to remain undisturbed in a corner of the yard, which provides places for them to nest. A less labor-intensive option to keep honey bees is to use a bee-keeping service. Lexington Bee, among other companies, offers this — for a fee they will install and maintain 2 hives in your yard.
Come May, bee colonies can also experience swarming, where a portion of the hive leaves with a new queen. This swarm typically is “the size of a football, hanging from a branch,” says Bartsch, who is the current swarm coordinator for the MCBA. If residents find or suspect a swarm, please contact the MCBA and someone will come to save the bees and start a new hive with them.
As the weather warms, honey bees will soon start emerging from their hives seeking flower nectar and pollen. And if you’re lucky enough to have or walk by a Linden tree in full bloom this summer, slow down and listen. Bartsch calls it “the most productive tree” around the area for its number of blossoms. A Linden tree covered with thousands of humming bees will be singinging.