Saving the Honey Bees
Alma Johnson, owner of The Sarasota Honey Company, gave a fascinating presentation on the ecosystems of honeybees at the Lakewod Ranch Women’s Club General meeting on Thursday May 9 at the LWR Town Hall.
Alma began her presentation with a brief video of honeybees. She gave an intriguing look into the colonies and wonders of bees – queen bees, drones, worker bees and the princess bee as well as the importance of these pollinators that are vital to our health and economy.
Honey Tasting
The club members tasted honey from various locations in Sarasota and Manatee County, each with very distinct flavors that Alma reported can change with every season. One honey from Osprey tastes like butterscotch when the right conditions exist. To preserve its health benefits, The Sarasota Honey Company does not pasteurize its honey or blend it from various locations.
A Well-oiled Social System
The work in the hive is a well-oiled social system with every bee having a job that they were born to do.
The Queen bee is the largest bee in the hive and her only job is to help the colony survive by laying eggs. The Queen bee is rarely seen outside of the hive as she is busy producing 1,500 to 2,000 eggs a day. She can live for three, four and sometimes 6 years
The next bee in the hive is the drone bee. Drone bees are all male and do no work inside or outside the hive. The drone bees congregate outside the hive to locate and mate with a virgin from other colonies
The last and hardest working bee is the worker bee. The worker bee is female and does everything in and outside the hive, including cleaning the hive; feeding, protecting, and grooming the queen; caring for the baby bees; collecting pollen; producing honey; and deterring potential predators. The life span of a worker bee is short and sometimes they only live for 4-6 weeks, dying from exhaustion.
Honeybees are crucial for our environment and without them we would no longer have the produce we consume daily.
The honeybee population is declining due to monoculture farming and no predator prey and disease, followed by chemicals, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides to protect the crops. Other contributing factors to honeybee decline are the loss of land from over development that reduces the habitat for bees
Alma offered advice on how we can help save these tiny creatures survive, including not removing palm tree blossoms after they have bloomed and planting a variety of flowers of different shapes and sizes in sunny, well-drained soil.
Members were invited to purchase a variety of local honeys
Alma has hundreds of hives all over Sarasota, Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch. The Sarasota Honey Company can now be found at The Bazaar on Apricot and Lime, as well as farmers markets in Waterside, Venice, Wellen Park, and Sarasota. Alma invited the members to visit her shop and attend the World Bee Day Celebration at the Bazaar on Saturday, May 18th from 10 am to 3 pm or attend one of their events, including tea parties and tours.