[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

+ =

Mr Bee goes for a jolly day out among the flowers. He flits hither and thither collecting pollen, then takes it back to the hive and... then what? How does the pollen get turned into honey?

Are there any other creatures that take a raw material and turn it into something else? (No, I don't mean like beavers taking wood and turning it into a dam)

[blakestyger]

I make marmalade.

[RD]

Wasps make papier mâché ...
 

Common wasps are social insects and live in nests of up to around 10,000 workers. They build a paper nest in a hole in the ground. The paper is made by the wasps who chew small amounts of wood from trees, reeds or garden fences and mix it with saliva to form a pulp which is added to the nest in thin strips.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/427.shtml

Some ants farm fungus ...
http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/atta/Pages/Leafcut.html

The bower bird creates installation art...

Bower birds The most notable characteristic of bowerbirds is the extraordinarily complex behaviour of males, which is to build a bower to attract mates. Depending on the species, the bower ranges from a circle of cleared earth with a small pile of twigs in the center to a complex and highly decorated structure of sticks and leaves — usually shaped like a walkway, a small hut or a maypole — into and around which the male places a variety of objects he has collected. These objects — usually strikingly blue in hue — may include hundreds of shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, berries, and even discarded plastic items or pieces of glass. The bird spends hours carefully sorting and arranging his collection, with each object in a specific place; if an object is moved while the bowerbird is away he will put it back in its place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird

[turnipsock]

Its not pollen that makes honey.

[blakestyger]

http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/073097.html

[sooyeah]

http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/073097.html

That's pretty much it, as stated above. Having known and currently living and working with a few bee keepers.
Working with the hives and collecting the honey which I have been doing recently, I will add that the process of Bees arriving with pollen, to honey ending up in cell. Apparently it's an 8 bee process, so one Bee passes the nectar to the next, in each ones mouth the enzymes increase, in a line of 8 to the cell.

Funny to know, if the queen dies. The worker Bees will make another Queen, from the worker eggs, by treating the eggs differently, different food etc.

There are male Bees you could call them 'Kings'. They do not work, they have to be feed by the workers like the Queen is and there entire function is to, well, help the Queen[]

If a Queen dies, or a collany is small you can mix hives together, and all the Bees end up following the same Queen. 

Bees swarm, that is to say, they leave the nest on mass, to go and start a new collany. During this time you will see Bee keepers chasing after them with baskets. [] Funny though, if you put the Queen in the basket all the other Bees, will naturally go in after her.
Although there are things you can do to stop them swarming. Kill the Queen, steal more honey so they are forced to work harder and then can't swarm etc etc. None of the options are nice really.

Quite sad we opened up a few hives the other day and 3 Queens were dead, so we have been looking for more, and considering options.

I hope that helps Beaver, If you have any other questions I'm sure I can find out for you, when it comes to Bees I know a few experts.

[turnipsock]

When a colony gets near to swarming. There will be a number of queen cell (like the one above) appearing throughout the hive. The worker bees will keep sealing this cell, even though a new queen is ready to emerge. When the weather is good and its around noon, the current queen will leave with more than half the bees to set up a new hive somewhere.

The new queens will be allowed to emerge and they will fight each other until there is only one, there can be only one. (so there will be a few dead queens around)

Swarming isn't good for honey production as the bees that leave with the old queen gorge themselves. They are so full they can't actually bend enough to sting. There are a number of ways to avoid swarming; as Jolly says, keep the honey in the hive low so they are struggling to become strong enough to swarm.

The best method is to go through the hive brood chamber and remove all the queen cells, you can dig out the royal jelly as well. The danger with this method is that the queen only lives for three years and when she dies, the workers will manifacture a new queen but this will be very week. One way round this is to replace the queen regulary. The queens are marked with a blob of paint, a different colour depending on the year of birth, which makes them easy to spot.

When the old queen leaves with a swarm, she emits a pheromone that the bees follow. You can buy a synthetic one to help trap the bees and they will always fly to the source. Unfortuantly it smells a bit like perfume so you sometime see women covered in bees when the top falls off their perfume bottle.

[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

Thank you all. Very enlightening.

[sooyeah]

Thank you all. Very enlightening.

Hey Beaver we have carried on:

HERE

[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

Thank you all. Very enlightening.

Hey Beaver we have carried on:

HERE

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