On Friday a beekeeper called Allan visited us at our Koru Team Assembly.
He told us that he started beekeeping in 1985 when he was in his twenties.
Allan has about one hundred hives around the Hutt Valley now. He said that it is a
good place for honey making because there are a lot of flowery trees.
We found out that each hive has from 40,000 and up to 100,000 bees in them. They also have
guard bees. The worker bees pollinate the flowers. That's what makes the fruit and the seeds grow.
There were no honey bees in NZ to start with. They were introduced to NZ about 150 years ago
Europe when people came on the ships.
Allan showed us his smoker. He uses this to calm the bees when he puts on his special outfit to
collect the honey from his hives.
We also found out that bees only sting when you annoy or hurt them.
The queen bee eats royal jelly. She lays up to 2000 eggs per day.
Did you know that beekeeper a use sugar syrup sometimes in the winter as food for the honey bees
to keep them alive when there isn't enough sun or flowers around.
We all learned a lot from Allan's talk and wrote about what we'd learned in our thank you letters to
him later on.
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