Praise Be To The Bee

Queen Bee.  Sounds pretty awesome right?  In human metaphor, it’s the alpha girl, the one with all the gifts. In pop culture, it’s Rizzo from Grease or Cher from Clueless. In any American High School movie it’s the sassy prom queen.  At the school gate, well, you know the one.

What about nature’s actual Queen Bees though? This summer I had the pleasure of meeting a real live beekeeper called Simon Cavill who has been a beekeeper for over 12 years and who also owns an awesome skincare company called Bee Good with his wife Caroline.  I had the opportunity to find out anything I wanted to know about the bee.  I started of course, with the Queen, but it turns out that their girl power was not quite what I had expected.

You know that phrase – you had one job?  Well, Queen Bee’s have one job and it’s not so much rule things majestically as be pregnant!  Be very pregnant – ALL the time.   So, one sunny afternoon she’ll fly out with an entourage of worker bees to find mates (drones).  It’s not one big love, there will be 15 – 20 of them, that day anyway.  The drones will do their business, leave their bits inside, back flip to the ground ceremoniously and die. The next drone will casually remove the previous set of bits and do exactly the same thing!  The Queen then goes on to lay baby bee eggs, up to 2000 a day!  Word to the mother.

The race to the throne is equally brutal.  Bizarrely, the first potential Queen to hatch will make a piping noise to challenge any rivals (I say that’s Bee for “bring it”).  It’s then a fight to the death with any other hatched bees, a quick wipe out of those yet to hatch and boom… it’s CORONATION DAY!!

OK, so whilst I’m not going to lie, being able to bonk lothario suitors to death and stop annoying rivals even being born has fleeting appeal, its not quite Cheryl Sandberg or JK Rowling territory.  Back to nature though, without the Queen, if she dares to fail in that one job, her colony will most likely die off.  If her maternal instincts don’t kick in, she can’t choose a career in IT flanked with good holidays uninterrupted by children.  OK, some of the worker bees might manage to lay the odd egg if she doesn’t, but only boy ones.  That might be fun down the bee pub for a while, but ultimately it isn’t going to fly long term.  Pressure!

In one final nod to the fight of the sisterhood, Queen Bees were presumed to be male up until the 1600s when some Dutch bloke discovered they had ovaries.  It was simply deemed unacceptable for nature to allow a colony to be run by a female even following Queen Elizabeth I (collective sigh sisters).

Did you know though, if there were no bees we would be in all sorts of trouble?  They pollinate 70 of the world’s crops that feed 90% of the world.  And with that in mind bees need to be protected as numbers are in sharp decline linked to pesticides. Simon’s tips to help include:

• • Filling your garden with bee-friendly plants. Bees love fruit blossom so cherry trees, apples, strawberries and raspberries are brilliant for them
  • Not using pesticides. They kill insects – all of them!
  • Think about dedicating a certain area of your garden to make a mini wildflower meadow. It will not only look gorgeous but will attract bees because of the diversity of different pollen and nectar they can get from the flowers.
  • In summer, pop some rocks in your bird bath. Bees can get really thirsty especially if the weather has been dry and this helps the bees get water without getting too wet so they can’t fly out.

You can find out more from Simon about bees, beekeeping and all the great skincare benefits of Honey, Beeswax and Propolis at Beegood.co.uk.  Having ordered myself the Honey & Propolis Cream Cleanser, the Plump and Firm moisturiser and the amazing NectaPerfecta™ mask I am BEEwitched.  A few minutes with the NectaPerfecta mask and I literally have a dewy glow I haven’t had since the late 80s.  Each package from Bee Good is boxed beautifully and contains a “Seedball” for your garden and a honey chocolate.

So be good to bees, especially the Queen, she’s literally one badass mother.