Meet the colony
A honeybee colony behaves less like a crowd of insects and more like a single organism. No bee survives long alone. Together, they heat their home, raise their young, store food for winter and even decide when to move house.
Every colony has three kinds of bee, each with a job only it can do.
The queen
One per colonyThe mother of almost every bee in the hive. She lays eggs, well over a thousand a day at the height of summer, and her scent holds the colony together. She can live for several years.
Workers
Tens of thousands in summerAll female, and they do everything else: cleaning, feeding the young, building comb, guarding, and flying out for nectar, pollen and water. Only workers make honey.
Drones
A few hundred, spring to autumnThe males. Bigger, with huge eyes and no sting. Their one job is to mate with queens from other colonies. In autumn, when food gets scarce, the workers push them out.
A young queen leaves the hive for a few mating flights early in life, mating with many drones in mid-air. She stores what she needs for the rest of her life and never mates again. From then on, she can choose to lay a fertilised egg, which becomes a female (worker or queen), or an unfertilised one, which becomes a drone.
What makes a queen rather than a worker isn't the egg. It's the food. Larvae raised in special large cells and fed generously on royal jelly develop into queens.
From egg to bee
Every bee goes through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. The egg stage is the same for all three kinds of bee, but after that the timings split. Queens develop fastest and drones slowest.
Larvae are fed by nurse bees many times an hour and grow enormously in less than a week. Then workers seal the cell with a wax cap, and inside, the larva spins a cocoon and transforms into an adult. When it's ready, the new bee chews its own way out.
A worker's career
A summer worker lives for only about five or six weeks, and she changes jobs as she ages, starting indoors and ending up outside. The timings below are rough. A colony can shift bees between jobs whenever it needs to.
- Cleaner, first days
Her first job is polishing out cells so the queen can lay in them again.
- Nurse, roughly days 3 to 11
Glands in her head make brood food and royal jelly, which she feeds to larvae and the queen.
- Builder and storekeeper, roughly days 12 to 17
She makes wax from glands on her abdomen, builds comb, and takes nectar from returning foragers to process into honey.
- Guard, around days 18 to 21
She stands at the entrance checking the scent of incoming bees, and sees off wasps and robbers from other hives.
- Forager, from about three weeks old
She spends the rest of her life flying out for nectar, pollen, water and propolis, often travelling a couple of miles or more from home.
Foragers share good finds with the famous waggle dance. On the vertical comb, a returning bee runs a figure-of-eight. The angle of the straight "waggle" run tells others which direction to fly relative to the sun, and how long it lasts tells them roughly how far.
Bees born in autumn are different. These "winter bees" live for months, not weeks, keeping the colony alive until spring.
How honey is made
Honey is the colony's winter food store: flower nectar, concentrated and preserved by thousands of bees working together.
- Collecting nectar
A forager sucks nectar from flowers into her honey stomach, a separate store from the stomach she uses to feed herself. One trip can take visits to many flowers.
- Adding enzymes
Back at the hive, she passes the nectar to younger house bees. Enzymes they add start breaking the nectar's sugar down into simpler sugars.
- Drying it out
Nectar is mostly water. Bees spread it through the comb and fan their wings to drive air through the hive until the water content drops to around 18 percent.
- Sealing it
When a cell of honey is ripe, the bees cap it with fresh wax. Low in water and naturally acidic, honey stored like this keeps for an extraordinarily long time.
- Harvesting the surplus
A strong colony stores more than it needs. Beekeepers take honey from the upper boxes, called supers, and leave the bees enough to get through winter, feeding them if stores run short.
From hive to jar at Merseybees
[How you extract and jar your honey: uncapping the frames, spinning them in an extractor, straining and settling, then jarring by hand.]
The colour and flavour of honey come from the flowers the bees visited, which is why honey from the same hives can taste different from spring to late summer.
Inside a hive
In the wild, honeybees nest in hollow trees and build comb wherever they like. A beekeeper's hive gives them the same dark, dry cavity, but with removable frames so the colony can be inspected without harm. The most common type in the UK is the National hive, built as a stack of boxes.
- Roof
- Keeps out the rain. Usually metal-topped and deep enough to sit over the crown board.
- Crown board
- A flat lid on the top box, often with a hole for feeders.
- Super
- A shallower box where the bees store surplus honey. This is what the beekeeper harvests. Strong colonies may have several.
- Queen excluder
- A grid with gaps just big enough for workers but too small for the queen, so she can't lay eggs among the honey.
- Brood box
- The colony's nursery. The queen lays here, and the bees keep their own food stores close by.
- Floor and entrance
- Often an open mesh floor, which helps ventilation and lets beekeepers check for mites. The entrance can be narrowed to help guard bees.
- Stand
- Lifts the hive off the damp ground and saves the beekeeper's back.
Inside each box hang wooden frames. The bees build their comb on these: thousands of six-sided wax cells used as cradles for young bees and as jars for honey and pollen. The hexagon is the ideal shape, packing cells together with no wasted space and the least wax.
Bees also collect sticky tree resins and turn them into propolis, a glue they use to seal gaps and varnish the inside of the hive. Anyone who has tried to lift a frame knows how well it works.
The beekeeping year
A colony's year follows the flowers and the weather. Here in the north-west, timings move by a few weeks depending on how warm or wet a year is.
WinterDecember to February
The bees form a tight cluster, shivering their flight muscles to keep the centre warm, and live on stored honey. The beekeeper mostly leaves them alone, checking hives are dry, secure and still heavy with food.
Early springMarch to April
The queen steps up laying as the first flowers appear: willow, crocus, blackthorn and dandelion. Numbers grow fast. Beekeepers start the first quick inspections on warm, still days.
Swarm seasonMay to July
The colony is at its busiest and most crowded, and may try to swarm. Beekeepers inspect about weekly, give the bees more space and look for signs of new queens being raised.
Summer flowJune to August
Bramble, clover, lime trees and garden flowers bring in the main nectar crop. Supers fill with honey, and the harvest usually comes towards the end of summer.
AutumnSeptember to November
After the harvest, the focus shifts to winter. Varroa treatment, feeding if stores are light, fitting mouse guards, and narrowing entrances against wasps. Ivy is a vital last feast of the year.
Swarms
Swarming is how a honeybee colony reproduces. When a colony is strong and crowded, usually in late spring or early summer, the workers raise new queens. Just before the first one emerges, the old queen leaves with a large share of the bees to find a new home, and the colony left behind carries on with a new queen.
A swarm often settles for a few hours or a day on a branch, fence or wall, as a hanging cluster of bees, while scouts search for somewhere permanent. It looks dramatic, but swarming bees are usually calm. They're full of honey and have no home to defend.
Found a swarm?
Keep people and pets at a distance, and don't spray or disturb it. If it's in our area, report it to us with a photo and we'll try to collect it.
Further afield, the British Beekeepers Association website can put you in touch with a swarm collector near you.
Not every nest is a honeybee swarm. Bumblebee nests and wasp nests are dealt with differently, and swarm collectors can usually tell from a photo.
Varroa and bee health
The biggest problem facing honeybees in the UK is a mite called varroa, about the size of a pinhead. It originally lived on the Asian honeybee, jumped to the western honeybee, and arrived in the UK in the early 1990s. The mites feed on developing and adult bees and spread viruses, including one that causes crumpled, useless wings.
Left alone, a heavy varroa load can kill a colony, often over winter. So beekeepers monitor mite levels through the year and treat when needed, which is one of the main jobs of the autumn.
Beekeepers also watch for brood diseases. In England and Wales, the National Bee Unit runs inspections and a free register for beekeepers called BeeBase, which helps track disease outbreaks.
Not just honeybees
Honeybees get most of the attention, but they're one species among a great many. The UK has well over 200 species of bee, and most of them are wild.
Bumblebees
Around two dozen species in the UK. Big, furry and able to fly in cooler weather than honeybees. They live in small colonies of up to a few hundred, often in old mouse holes, compost heaps or long grass, and only the new queens survive the winter.
Solitary bees
The majority of UK bee species. Each female builds her own small nest, in the ground, in hollow stems or in old walls, and provisions it for her young on her own. Mining bees and red mason bees are common in gardens. They make no honey, but they're excellent pollinators.
Bee or wasp?
Bees are generally hairy and collect pollen; wasps are smooth and shiny with a distinct narrow "waist". Hoverflies often mimic bees and wasps, but they have only one pair of wings and hover on the spot.
Help bees at home
You don't need to keep bees to help them. A window box, a yard or a patch of lawn can make a real difference.
Plant for the whole season
Bees need food from early spring to late autumn, so aim for something in flower at each end of the year as well as in summer.
Spring
Crocus, pussy willow, flowering currant, lungwort, and let a few dandelions be.
Summer
Lavender, catmint, borage, marjoram, foxglove, clover and bramble.
Late season
Sedum, Michaelmas daisies, and ivy, which flowers when little else does.
- Choose single flowers. Many "double" varieties have so many petals that bees can't reach the nectar or pollen.
- Mow less. Leave a patch of lawn to grow so clover, daisies and dandelions can flower.
- Go easy on pesticides. If you must spray, avoid anything in flower and follow the label carefully.
- Put out water. A shallow dish with pebbles for bees to stand on, especially in hot weather.
- Give solitary bees a home. A bee hotel of hollow stems or drilled wood, in a sunny, sheltered spot. Replace the tubes every couple of years to keep them clean.
- Buy local honey. It supports beekeepers who look after colonies in your area.
Honey questions
Why has my honey gone solid?
That's crystallisation, and it's completely natural. It isn't a sign the honey has gone off. Some honeys set within weeks, others stay runny for months, depending on the flowers. To make it runny again, stand the jar in warm (not boiling) water and stir now and then.
Can babies have honey?
No. The NHS advises not giving honey to babies under 12 months old, because of a small risk of infant botulism. It's fine for older children and adults.
Does local honey help with hay fever?
It's a popular idea, but there's little scientific evidence for it. Most hay fever is caused by wind-blown pollen from grasses and trees, which isn't what bees mainly collect. Enjoy it for the taste.
Why does honey come in different colours and flavours?
It depends on which flowers the bees foraged on. Pale, mild honeys and dark, rich ones can come from the same hives in different months.
What's the difference between runny honey, set honey and comb honey?
Runny honey is extracted and strained. Set honey is encouraged to crystallise finely so it's soft and spreadable. Comb honey is cut straight from the frame, still sealed in its wax, and the wax is edible.
Does taking honey harm the bees?
A responsible beekeeper only takes the surplus, what a strong colony stores beyond its own needs, and makes sure the bees have enough for winter, feeding them if needed.
Quick facts
Two large compound eyes, plus three simple eyes on top of the head that help with light and orientation.
That's what gives honeybees their distinctive buzz.
By a common estimate, the honey one worker makes in her whole life. A jar is the work of a great many bees.
Drones have no sting at all. A worker's sting is barbed, so if she stings a person, she dies.
Bees keep their brood nest at around 34–35°C, warming it by shivering and cooling it by fanning and evaporating water.
Because it's so low in water and naturally acidic, properly stored honey lasts for a very long time.
Beekeeping words
- Apiary
- A place where hives are kept.
- Brood
- The eggs, larvae and pupae in a colony.
- Capped
- Sealed with wax, whether ripe honey or a developing bee.
- Colony
- The bees themselves: a queen, workers and drones living together.
- Comb
- The sheets of six-sided wax cells the bees build.
- Forage
- The flowers bees collect from, and the act of collecting.
- Nectar flow
- A period when plenty of nectar is available and bees store honey fast.
- Nuc
- Short for nucleus colony: a small, complete colony with a laying queen on a few frames, used to start a new hive. We'll sell nucs from 2027.
- Propolis
- Plant resin collected by bees and used to seal the hive.
- Queen cell
- A large, peanut-shaped cell where a new queen is raised.
- Super
- A box where bees store honey for the beekeeper to harvest.
- Swarm
- A queen and a large group of workers leaving to start a new colony.