Sting Like a Bee Trivia Quiz

Answer: Apiary

The area can also be called a bee yard. An aviary is a place that birds are kept.

Answer: Brood Chamber

In a strong hive two larger boxes are at the bottom with nine frames in each. Each frame will have starter sheets of wax in them to encourage the bees to begin to form wax comb. This gives the bees plenty of room to work and raise their young. Overcrowding can cause bees to swarm, (leave the hive), and find a better home.

Answer: Supers

Boxes called supers are placed on top of the brood chambers. These boxes are usually smaller in size and have ten frames with starter wax sheets. The bees will begin making wax comb and then will fill the comb with nectar they have gathered. The nectar they gather from flowers mixes with enzymes in their stomach to make honey.

They regurgitate the honey into the comb and will fan the honey to reduce the moisture level. Honey with too high of a moisture level is prone to fermentation.

Answer: Smoking

Part of the beekeeper's equipment is a smoker can. This can has a lid and has a bellows attached to the side. There are various fuels that can be used. I always preferred burlap. After lighting the fuel the lid is closed and the bellows supplies oxygen and also blows the smoke over the frames and into the hive. Bees sensing the danger of fire begin to engorge themselves with honey preparing to swarm.

This makes them lethargic and less able to sting.

Answer: Lay eggs

The queen's job is to lay eggs. A good queen can lay as many as 2000 eggs a day. There can be several virgin queens in a hive but a hive usually has only one fertile queen.

Answer: Mate with a queen

The drone's sole purpose is to mate with a queen. Drones drift from hive to hive and congregate in areas near the hives waiting for queens to come looking for them. Drones have great eyesight and mate with a queen in flight. A queen will fly out for several days and will be mated by many different drones before she is ready to return to the hive and begin laying eggs.

Answer: Drones are stingless

Only queen bees and worker bees have stingers.

Answer: Pollination

The life span of a worker bee is about six weeks and she is a busy bee every day of her life. She will meticulously clean cells for queens to lay her eggs. She feeds the larvae and the queen, makes wax and keeps the hive clean. She brings nectar and pollen into the hive and will store, cure and cap the cells.

She will also fan and bring water into the hive to keep the hive from getting too warm. In the process of all this busy work bees provide the pollination so necessary for good crop production.

When her wings begin to wear out she will usually crawl out of the hive to die. :(

Answer: It dies

Worker bees can sting only once because they have a barbed stinger and when they sting it pulls the venom pouch from the bee and she dies. A queen bee's stinger is not barbed and a queen can sting again and again.

Answer: Royal Jelly

Royal jelly is a white, milky substance secreted from a gland in a workers bee's head. It is used to feed the bee larvae. Through hive manipulation beekeepers can increase the amount of royal jelly that is produced. It is then harvested and sold as a health food supplement.

Honey wine or mead, honey butter and honey spread are just some of the many ways honey can be processed once it has been harvested.