My Home - The Hive



How hives are Built:

Hello again! I hope you learnt something new from my last post. Today I am going to share with you how my family and I make our home. Our hive is something we are very proud of and we work very hard to perfect it to ensure that it works to its best potential.

Honey bee hives are made of wax, which we produce ourselves. They consist of six-sided tubes, which are the shapes for optimal honey production because they require less wax and can hold more honey.

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1. Find a Location: Wild honeybees will chose an area that is protected from the elements. This could be in a sheltered rock crevice or a hollow in a tree. Bees that are kept in farms are provided with ideal spaces to build their hive such as a wooden structure like this. (insert picture) 
2. Cover Walls with Propolis:  Propolis is made from plant resins, bee's wax and their saliva. We use this substance because it has antimicrobial properties which protect us from harmful germs that have the potential to be introduced from the outside of the hive. Thin layers are added at various stages of the build of the hive.
3. Make Wax: The cells in a bee's nest are called honeycombs and are made of wax. We secrete it from glands in our abdomens. 
4. Make Cells: To form the cells, bees will chew the wax until it is soft and then add the chewed wax to the honeycomb construction. The cells are used to store pollen, nectar, eggs, larvae, water and honey.

Fun Fact: As bees age, we produce a lower quality of wax – consequently the bees in charge of building comb are usually between two to three weeks old!!!

Why are Honeycombs Hexagonal? 

Some people believe that the reason the cells are shaped like hexagons is because they require less wax but can still hold lots of honey. However, in 2013, a study was carried out that proved otherwise. A colony of bees that were in the process of making honeycomb, were deliberately disturbed. It was observed that the most recently built cells were circular and the previously built ones were hexagonal. The research showed, that the heat the bees produced while working caused the wax to melt causing the circular cells to change to hexagons. However, it is not clear whether the bees do this on purpose so both theories could, in  fact, be correct.
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