Green Communities Honeybee, and Candle Making Workshop: 02/08/14

Green Communities Honeybee, and Candle Making Workshop: 02/08/14.

The Honeybee and Beeswax Candle making workshop was successfully delivered during a window of dry weather during a day that was otherwise a wash out. The rain began to fall heavily the previous night and was still falling on Saturday morning. This eased off and then dried up between 11:00 am and 2:30 pm when the weather quickly closed in again and everything/everyone was soon soaked. After two months of dry weather, most of it sunny, throughout June and July, the rain was back. The days events started at about 12:15 pm with a slide show and talk about the life cycle of Honeybees and the many different functions that are carried out by the worker bees. These include water collectors, nectar collectors, pollen collectors, guard bees, nurse bees, and undertaker bees. Worker Bees start their lives with hive duties before moving on to become field bees. Approximately 85% of worker bees end their lives outside the hive, but some die within the hive and for this reason undertaker bees are required to remove them. Healthy bees live on a diet of honey, royal jelly, pollen, and water. The honey is stored in wax cells that are only sealed by the worker bees when the honey has lost some of its water content. After the slide show we moved up to the other end of the garden to have a go at making Beeswax candles while having our lunch. The event ended shortly after the return of the rain at 3:00 pm.