Bill, The Bee Man
- Ann Doll
- Aug 14
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 15
Bill, The Bee Man, presented a workshop on Natural Beekeeping at the Elm Street Urban Garden last Saturday. With natural beekeeping, no chemicals are used, and the welfare of the bees comes first. Bill only harvests small batches of honey, making sure there is plenty of honey left for the bees to eat during the cold winter months. He stressed that the number one cause of the dwindling bee population is people spraying their lawns with toxic chemicals. We need Bees and other pollinators to pollinate food crops so that farmers can grow food for us to eat. So, Bill is hoping that natural beekeeping workshops will inspire people to be more mindful of their actions so that we can Save the Bees.
During the lecture, Bill explained that every hive has a Queen Bee, Drone Bees (male), Worker Bees (female), Scout and Guard Bees, both female as well. The Queen is responsible for laying thousands and thousands of eggs into the cells of the honey comb. The job of the Drone Bee is to mate with the Queen. The Worker Bees take care of almost everything else: collecting pollen to make honey, taking care of the eggs, making sure the hive is clean, etc. The Guard Bees protect the hive against predators like wasps. And, the Scout Bees find fields of flowers for the Worker Bees to collect pollen. Scout Bees are also responsible for finding a new home/place to build a new hive, if necessary.
Bill told us that bees communicate in two ways: Waggle Dance and Smell. When Worker Bees return to the hive to drop off the pollen, they will do a Waggle Dance which lets the other bees know where the flowers are located. The bees also use smell or pheromones to communicate with one another.
Fun Facts:
Worker Bees live 5 - 7 weeks
Georgia has over 500 species of bees
Honey Bees are not native to America
Honey Bees were imported from Europe
It takes 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey
Chemical lawn sprays are the number one cause of Bees disappearing
After the lecture, Bill provided us with Bee Suits so that we could get a close look at the bees in the hive. He was kind enough to take pictures of each of us participants holding a frame of bees. Bill also made it a point to show us what the Queen Bee; she was much larger with a longer torso. What an amazing workshop.
Bill, (William Crumpler) is a Beekeeper/Farmer at Rooted Faith Farms in Georgia. He often collaborates with Food Well Alliance, who hosted this event. The site of the workshop, The Elm Street Urban Garden is part of the Historic Westside Gardens founded by Rosario Hernandez.
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