Employees abuzz after presentation on honey bees

PEABODY – Members of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees received a swarm of information Wednesday afternoon during an informative presentation lead by David Meldrum, President of the Essex County Beekeepers Association.With a model hive, smoker, tool kit, and a pound of honey, Meldrum began to tell the history of one of the world’s most researched animals and oldest practices.”Honey bees have existed for millions of years,” he told the audience. “And they haven’t changed a bit.”According to Meldrum, apes and monkeys were the first beekeepers, with cavemen to follow many thousands of years, B.C. He said the act of beekeeping has always been an essential part of pollination, even more so today.”Any town typically has 10-20 beekeepers,” he said. “They’re around and you don’t even notice it.”What people do tend to notice is when the pesky buzzers fly around their gardens or take a swim inside their soda cans. But, Meldrum said that honeybees really are human friendly.”The yellowjacket gives honeybees a bad rap,” he said, noting their aggressive behavior. “Honeybees really have no interest in humans.” In fact, he said that honeybees are such hard workers, they don’t have the time to be bothered pestering humans.If they’re not protecting their Queen or defending the hive from unwanted intruders, they’re constructing holding cells for eggs to develop or producing wax, which Meldrum said is their most difficult task of all.He describes the process as such: worker bees fill their stomachs with as much honey as possible, gather closely with one another, and literally squeeze the honey through special glands located in their abdomens, at which time the honey transforms into small flakes of wax.And, in order to make just one pound of honey, a bee’s main dietary staple, Meldrum said it takes over 50,000 miles of flying.”That’s equal to two times around the Earth,” he said. “They really are ‘busy as a bee’.”Even during the winter, bees are still very much so at work, said Meldrum. They spend their winter months keeping the Queen warm. Meldrum likened the process to that of penguins: all the bees circle closely together to maintain the Queen’s body temperature at a cozy 85 degrees, even on the coldest of days.Most hives contain 20,000 bees in the spring to about 80,000 in the fall and yield about 150 pounds of honey. About half of that is taken and used by beekeepers, while the remaining half is left for the bees to feed on.”Honey is an amazing food,” said Meldrum, adding that it never goes bad. “You can eat honey that’s over 1,000 years old.”One thing that remains a mystery to beekeepers and researchers throughout the world is Colony Collapse Disorder, which has caused a dramatic reduction in the honeybee population. Meldrum said there’s no definitive cause, but the effects could be detrimental to crops.For more information on how to become a local beekeeper, log on to www.essexcountybeekeepers.org.