The Beehive. The most organized community.
The bees live in community. They are the most organized insects of the animal world and, this organization is based on the distribution of the work. The working bees do most of the tasks that a community undertakes. They also are the most numerous group. They do the fieldwork in the outside of the beehive. They cross a radius of up to three kilometres settling in different flowers; there they join pollen, tiny grams that are vital in the vegetal reproduction. Also they taste the nectar, a sweet liquid that produces the flowers. The nectar is the raw material that soon will be transformed into honey. In addition they gather from nature a sticky substance called Propóleos that will be used like glue in the construction of the beehive.
The interior of the dwelling is divided in numerous cells. They are constructed with wax that makes the bees. In some of these cells, the workers keep pollen. In others they store the honey. But, there are other cells that are taken care of by workers who do not leave to the field but which they make his tasks within the beehive. Inside these cells guarded by the workers, are the eggs that a day will be transformed into bees. The workers protect the eggs and they feed them with pollen, honey and royal jelly, a secretion that produce their glands. These eggs do not contain the children of the workers, but to their sisters. In a beehive all the bees are daughters of the same mother: the bee queen.
When the queen fulfils a cycle, a new bee queen occupies its place. Through this complex social organization, the bees of a beehive follow one another generation after generation. Although the next litter of bees is in the cells that contain the eggs, the secret of the survival of a community of bees is in the other cells that keep pollen and the honey. They are the power reserves whereupon they will be fed during the winter. The months in which the exterior no longer keeps pollen nor the nectar.
The Beekeeper
Observing the bee world, the man thought about how to be sure about the provision of honey throughout the year. He had to obtain bees working for him. He had already domesticated plants and animals; then he thought about domesticating the insects. Beekeeping was born, that specializes in the care of the bees that produce honey. The beekeeping modifies the conduct of the bees from the beginning of the community with the construction of the beehive. For the human being, the natural beehive is not useful.
Using the beehive as house the bees continue their laborious cycle, taking care of the eggs or producing honey. One of the tasks nails of the beekeeping begins when the honey is mature. The moment of the harvest calculates when approximately two thirds of the bed is covered with honey. As of this moment, the beekeeper makes the extraction of the honey, through a series of steps that he respects rigorously. The beekeeper smokes out the beehive stunning the insects, facilitating the task. The beekeeper will move the bees away of the cells leaving the beehive bed free. The bees will return to the beehive and will follow their routine working in another beehive bed. First stage of the extraction is fulfilled. Honey is own by the beekeeper.
The beekeeper that manages to successful install the colony of bees in the beehive sees assured his production of honey. But the collaboration of the bees does not finish here. A well-installed colony increases its population constantly. This growth in the amount of insects will allow the beekeeper to install other beehives. For this it is used a very peculiar conduct that assumes the bees to avoid the overpopulation of the beehive. Thus the beekeeper manages to control the constant increase of his apiary.
At the present time, the beekeeping is the base of an industry that annually commercialises tons of honey, next to other products and generates an important amount of currencies. It is a source of human enrichment, cradle in the efficient social organization of this insect.