By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
Let’s keep the buzz going on my recent columns about Kentucky state symbols and talk this week about Kentucky’s state insect, the honey bee, which is, for most of us, a positive subject.
It’s a creature critical to our everyday lives in Kentucky and beyond.
Designated with the title officially in 2010, the “work” of a honey bee starts with one word — pollination. Pollination is defined by the U.S. Forestry Service as “the transfer of pollen grains from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma, which allows plants to produce seeds and offspring.” The honey bee is a true friend of flowers, vegetables, and fruits, and that makes it the friend of humans. Its role as a pollinator truly characterizes it, and in my opinion, it’s a good choice as our state insect.
Former state apiarist for Kentucky, Dr. Tammy Horn Potter, has spent much of her life around the craft of beekeeping, and she has plenty to say about bees’ importance. One needs to look no further than how Kentucky feeds its citizens, according to Potter.
“As a state, we have one of the largest cattle industries, both meat and dairy. A lot of their food comes from clover that bees pollinate,” said Potter. “So, bees and cattle tend to follow each other.”
That fact has far-reaching implications.
“From a global perspective,” she stated, “we have over eight billion people in the world now, so I think we have to consider how we are going to feed people and fruits and vegetables are a part of that. Bees contribute, directly or indirectly, to one of every three bites is somehow related to pollinators, not just honey bees.”
Of those pollinators, however, honey bees are unique.
“Honey bees are at the top of the list because they are ‘generalist’ pollinators,” Potter continued. “They pollinate a wide variety of flowers. They are not ‘specialists.’” In considering Kentucky’s crops being grown, including watermelons, pumpkins, and apples, for example, Potter said that “honey bees play a role in the ‘seed set’ of those fruits and vegetables, (and) honey bees contribute approximately thirty billion dollars to our food industry. Native bees contribute approximately six billion.”
I asked Dr. Potter about something what people don’t like about honey bees.
“They DO sting,” she said, “but honey bees don’t sting repeatedly. When they sting, their sting apparatus falls out of their abdomen. When they have to defend their hive, as they feel like they should, that is a one-time thing. It’s going to want to defend its colony, but it really has to be ‘pushed’ to sting.”
If that clears up one common misconception about honey bees, Potter noted that many think that “once a hive gets at full-strength, that it is at full-strength the rest of the year. That is not the case. It will go into ‘winter cluster’ by September or October, so then they get smaller and they will not be as active after November.” She explained that honey bees are not very active when the temperature gets below 55 degrees, with that stretching until about March of the next year.
So, the honey bee is a good thing. It’s our state insect. How might our citizens be “bee friendly” to them?
“Planting fall flowers is absolutely critical,” said Dr. Potter. “That is a critical time for a colony while it has got nectar and pollen to prepare for wintertime. The more that people can plant fall-blooming flowers, typically the better for all pollinators, not just for honey bees, but also our bumble bees.”
She mentioned such flowers as purple coneflowers, goldenrods (Kentucky’s state flower), asters, tickseeds (coreopsis), and sunflowers, along with herbs.
“They are not difficult to grow, can handle some adversity, can handle some neglect,” she explained. “Herbs are wonderful to plant, and people can plant some for themselves and leave some to flower for the honey bees.” She mentioned such common herbs as thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil, and that leaving them in containers “is just fine, not just (sown) in the yard.”
Dr. Potter has both positive and concerned feelings on the current state of honey bees and their sustainability. “I do worry because we are losing agricultural farmland every year and we’re also using more and more products for control of things that bother our vegetable gardens,” she said, “but I feel like beekeeping associations are doing a good job of trying to educate beekeepers.
“A lot of communities have rallied to promote pollinators. We have been working hard for pollinator awareness going on twenty years now and it hasn’t died down. Our younger generations are excited about pollinators and whenever I’m working with the 4-H group, they have a foundation that I can build upon. There’s always more work to be done, but it’s always a joy, too.”
Here are some facts I discovered in researching our state insect, with help from Dr. Potter:
• Can generally fly between 12.5 and 14.9 miles per hour, and an upper limit clocked at 25
• A colony can contain up to sixty to seventy thousand bees from June to July
• A single worker bee produces about .083 of a teaspoon of honey
• Queen bees store supply a lifetime supply of sperm
• A queen honey bee can lay 1,500 eggs a day, more if optimal conditions
• Honey bees use complex symbolic language
• Drones die after mating
• Beekeepers often look for dead drones to determine if queens are mating
• A hive is about 93 degrees Fahrenheit in summer
• Beeswax comes from special glands on a bee’s abdomen
• A worker bee, under ideal conditions, may visit two thousand flowers per day
• A hive can produce an emergency queen
For much more information on honey bees, you might check out Dr. Potter’s three books: Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation; Beeconomy: What Women and Bees Can Teach Us About Local Trade; and Flower Power: Establishing Pollinator Habitat.
