In the bee farm of Kagamino in March, the days are getting longer and the daytime temperatures are getting higher, though sometimes flowers will reel in the wind. It is only about a month before the milk vetch flowers bloom and the beehives that passed the winter in the warmer bee farm in the southern part of Okayama Prefecture to avoid the winter cold will soon be moved. The queen bees that took a break during the winter have started laying eggs again, with the blooming of the plum blossoms. The young worker bees that were born this year are already flying about.
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The most important task of the beekeepers is to make the swarms of bees strongest when the milk vetch flowers are in full bloom by increasing the number of young worker bees with the honey and pollen of spring flowers, beginning with the plum and camellia in early spring and continuing with rape blossoms and cherry blossoms later in the spring.
In the world of honeybees, the age of a bee is counted from the day of eclosion from the pupa in days. For example, if the honeybee is in its 3rd day of life following eclosion, the bee is 3 days old. The assignment of work is determined depending on the number of days following eclosion, and the role of the young worker bees is to rear children and secrete royal jelly. However, in early spring, the only worker bees are those that were born in the previous autumn. These old bees provide a small amount of royal jelly to the queen bee by summoning up all their strength to stimulate the queen bee to lay more eggs before passing the torch to the next generation. That's why the number of eggs laid by the queen bee is small at the beginning of spring. When the young bees first born this year start to rear children, however, the quantities of nectar and pollen carried from the outside gradually increase and the number of eggs laid by the queen bee increases accordingly, enabling the queen bee to produce at its full potential.
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Everybody knows that honeybees collect nectar from flowers, but they do not necessarily collect nectar from any flower. I have never seen honeybees collecting nectar from tulips or anemones, which are typical spring flowering plants. Plants from which honeybees collect nectar are called nectar source plants or bee plants, and their types are limited. For example, the Eurya tree, though not well-known by most people, is a very important tree for beekeepers. It has popular names that differ from region to region such as "Sha-shaki" and "Bishako." The Hisakaki (Eurya tree) is a frutescent evergreen tree in a coppice that blooms inconspicuous flowers around March. Bees are attracted to these flowers. This is a very important flower because swarms of bees use it to increase their worker population, thereby boosting their strength, before the milk vetch flowers begin to bloom.
The bees collect the nectar stored the previous autumn for the winter and that collected for child rearing from early spring once, emptying out the beehive before the milk vetch flowers bloom. We call this process the first nectar (or the "clean out" nectar). It is consumed to prevent its being mixed with the milk vetch nectar that will soon be collected by the honeybees. Our busiest season is just around the corner. As is always the case in the world of agriculture, this year, we are looking forward to a plentiful harvest as we await the arrival of spring in full force.
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