GAP Group Honey Bees
Three of the GAP Group senior managers attended the introduction to Beekeeping course with the British Beekeeping Association. We now have two hives at GAP Group Headquarters in Gateshead and the three managers also have in their gardens at home. Lots and lots of delicious honey for our staff, clients and partners.
What's in the hive?
In any hive there are thousands of honeybees. There are three types: a single queen, thousands of female worker bees and, in the summer, hundreds of male drones. The drone's sole purpose is to mate with the queen and every day they rise to the drone congregation area nearest to the hive to hang out with their mates and wait for a virgin queen to make her maiden flight. If they succeed in mating with her their sexual organs detach and the drone dies and falls to the ground. The unsuccessful drones are evicted by the workers at the end of the summer and die.
At the height of summer there is an average of 35-40,000 bees in the hive - a really big colony would have around 60,000 bees. Over the winter this falls to around 5,000 bees. The winter bees live for several months, their summer colleagues only for a few, intensely worked weeks.
Want more fascinating facts about bees? https://www.bbka.org.uk/Pages/Category/fascinating-facts
