The European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) is an amazing creature. They have remained wild creatures despite man's continuous involvement with them. Unlike most livestock that we have been able to domesticate to make our husbandry over them easier for us, the honey bees have kept their independence. They no more need the hive that we give them than they need us to take their honey.

There are three classes of honey bees. The Drones, whose sole purpose in life is to mate with a queen. If they succeed if this effort they die. They perform no other functions in the hive and are overall a drain on the hive's resources. They are tolerated only so long as things are going well. When times get hard the other bees will force them out of the hive where they are left to die. The Queen having been raised from the time she was no more than three days old for her sole task in life, to lay eggs. Thousands of them a day, day in and day out. By her action she assures the survival of the hive. A hive that she only leaves a few times to mate prior to her starting to lay eggs. Once she starts to lay eggs she will only leave the hive should the hive swarm. She will then leave with the swarm leaving another queen, one of her daughters to reign over her former hive. And the last class the Worker bee. As her name implies she is the one that gets the work done. From cleaning, to caring for the young, to defending the hive, to going out and gathering the nectar, it is the worker that gets the jobs done. During the spring and summer they literally work themselves to death.

What Beekeepers try to do is to get these wild creatures to live in our boxes, make a lot of honey, and not swarm. After many thousands of years of study, (the ancient Egyptians were the first beekeepers) beekeepers are now pretty successful at these goals.

A list of club members who sell Honeybees.

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