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Hiroto Fujiyoshi |
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. 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. |
Yamada Bee Farm (Kagaminocho Pref. Okayama)
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