Honey bees are important pollinating insects and here in the orchard we have two National bee hives. During the summer there could be up to 50,000 bees in each colony . There is one queen bee whose main job is to lay the eggs. There are a few hundred male drone bees, whose sole job is to mate with the queen bee. The queen is looked after by the young female worker bees who do practically all the work in the colony, look after the brood (eggs and larvae), clean and maintain the hive and when older they forage for nectar and pollen.
The bees visit different flowers during the season, flying up to 2 or 3 miles to collect nectar and pollen which they bring back to their hive. They produce honey from the nectar and store it in wax honey comb.
