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Paradise in the Pines - Apiary and Honey Sales, 3858 W French Road, Saint Johns, MI (2026)

01/12/2026

Let’s talk about trophallaxis

Trophallaxis is how honey bees share food mouth-to-mouth.
It happens worker to worker, worker to drone, and worker to queen.

🐝It has nothing to do with what is being fed — it’s simply the delivery system.
What is fed depends on who is receiving the food.

🐝Worker → Worker
• Nectar or honey
• Often partially processed
• Also spreads enzymes and colony information

🐝Worker → Drone
• Nectar or honey
• Drones are fed by workers inside the hive

🐝Worker → Queen
• Always royal jelly–based glandular secretions
• Never honey
• Never nectar
• Never sugar or fondant
Bee Haven 2026
The queen does not feed herself — she is fed every few minutes by her retinue.

🐝 Do honey bees eat raw nectar?
Yes — foragers may consume raw nectar for quick energy.
But for long-term use, nectar is passed between workers, enzymatically processed, dehydrated, and stored as honey.

01/12/2026

Do Queen Bees Feed Themselves? 🐝

No — queen bees do not feed themselves.

Why doesn’t the queen feed herself?
Even though the queen has mouthparts, they are not designed for self-feeding:
🐝Mandibles
The queen’s mandibles are smooth and narrow. They are built for fighting rival queens and opening queen cells — not for opening honey or nectar cells.
🐝Tongue (proboscis)
The queen’s tongue is shorter and less functional than a worker’s and is not well suited for lapping nectar or honey from cells.
🐝Digestive system
The queen’s digestive physiology is specialized to receive processed food, not raw nectar or honey.

From the moment she emerges — even as a virgin queen — she is biologically dependent on worker bees for nutrition.

So what does the queen eat?
The queen eats royal jelly only.

Royal jelly is:
🐝Made by young nurse bees
🐝Produced from glandular secretions (hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands)
🐝Created after workers digest and process nectar/honey and pollen
The queen is fed through mouth-to-mouth feeding (trophallaxis) by workers in her retinue. She never goes to a cell to eat nectar or honey herself.
Why does it sometimes look like she’s feeding herself?

When a virgin queen emerges, she is often:
• Surrounded by workers
• Near open food cells
From a quick glance, it can look like she’s eating. In reality, workers are feeding her right there on the comb.

.

01/11/2026

“Do honey bees reuse cells?
🐝Yes — they absolutely do! Honey bees reuse brood cells constantly, and it’s a huge part of how a colony stays efficient, healthy, and sustainable.

Do baby bees or baby queens clean their own cells when they emerge?
🐝The answer is nope — they don’t. Worker bees, drones, and queens all emerge from their cells and move on. They do not clean the cell they came from.

Here’s what actually happens in the hive:
🐝Once a bee emerges, young worker bees (often called house bees) step in and do the cleanup.
This is part of the hive’s hygienic behavior. These workers meticulously clean out the empty cell, removing cocoon remnants, waste material (called meconium), and any debris left behind. The cleaning is very thorough — the cell must be spotless before it can be reused.
Once cleaned, that same cell is ready to go again. If the colony needs more brood, the queen will lay another egg right in that cell. Over time, as brood is raised again and again in the same cells, the comb naturally becomes darker due to the buildup of cocoon layers — this is completely normal and expected in healthy brood comb.
If brood space isn’t needed, those cleaned cells don’t go to waste. Bees may repurpose them to store honey or pollen, showing just how adaptable and efficient they are with space inside the hive.

🐝Queen cells are a bit different. They do not get reused the same way as worker cells. After a virgin queen emerges, workers often tear the queen cell down rather than clean and reuse it. Emergency and swarm queen cells are typically temporary structures built for a specific purpose.
Bee Haven 2026
Why does all this matter?
Because wax production is incredibly expensive for bees. It takes roughly 6–8 pounds of honey to produce just 1 pound of wax. By reusing comb instead of constantly building new wax, the colony saves massive amounts of energy, time, and resources — energy that can be redirected toward brood rearing, foraging, and survival.
Honey bees really are master recyclers, and this simple process is one of the many reasons they’re such successful and resilient creatures 🐝💛

01/07/2026

Where does royal jelly come from?
And do nurse bees store it?

🐝Royal jelly is made by nurse bees, not collected and not stored.
🐝Nurse bees (usually ~5–15 days old) eat honey (carbs) and pollen (protein)
🐝Their hypopharyngeal glands and mandibular glands convert those nutrients into royal jelly
🐝It’s a glandular secretion, produced internally by the bee
Think of it as freshly made brood food, not a substance sitting around in the hive.

❌ Is royal jelly stored?
🐝No. Royal jelly is not stored in cells or inside bees long-term.
🐝Glands are production sites, not storage tanks
🐝Royal jelly is made on demand

It’s fed immediately to:
🐝the queen (all year)
🐝young larvae (early development)
Bee Haven 2026
This is a really cool fact
🐝Primarily, nurse bees produce royal jelly.
However, if a colony is stressed or short on nurses, older workers can revert to nursing roles. Their glands can partially reactivate and produce smaller amounts of royal jelly–like food. This flexibility (called age Polyethism) helps colonies survive.

12/25/2025

Merry Christmas!!!

12/14/2025

Sooo let’s talk about scout bees! 🐝💛

Scout bees are usually mentioned when a hive is preparing to swarm, but their role is even more fascinating than most people realize.

Who are the scout bees?
-Scout bees are typically older worker bees, usually around 2–3 weeks old, with foraging experience.
-They’re the explorers of the hive, tasked with finding new homes, food sources, and monitoring the environment.

What do they do?
🐝Searching for new homes- When the colony gets crowded, scouts look for the perfect spot — dry, safe, roomy, and with a small, defensible entrance.

🐝Checking & double-checking- Scouts often visit a potential site multiple times to make sure it’s really suitable.

🐝Sharing the news -Using the waggle dance, scouts communicate the location and quality of a site to the rest of the colony.

🐝Helping the colony decide- Different scouts may promote different sites. Through repeated visits and dances, the colony reaches a consensus, and when enough scouts agree, the swarm moves together.

🐝Finding food- Scouts also search for nectar and pollen sources and report them back to the hive.

🐝Watching the environment- They monitor for threats, weather changes, and other conditions that could affect the hive.

🐝 Keeping the hive adaptable- All the information scouts gather helps the colony make smart decisions, keeping it strong and resilient.
Bee Haven 2025
Scout bees may be small, but they’re mighty.
They remind us that communication, teamwork, and careful evaluation are what keep the hive thriving.
Every bee plays a role, and the scouts are a perfect example of the collective intelligence that makes honey bee colonies so remarkable. 🐝💛

12/13/2025

How Honey Bees Make Wax 🐝

-Young worker bees (about 12–18 days old) are the little wax makers.
-They eat honey and actually convert the sugars into wax inside their bodies.
-Tiny, clear wax flakes appear on the underside of their bellies — they look like little fish scales.
-The bees grab those flakes with their legs and chew them to soften and shape the wax.
-They mix in a bit of bee spit (very official 🤣) and start forming the honeycomb.
-The hive must stay warm — around 91–97°F — for the wax to stay workable.
-Once it cools, the comb hardens into those perfect yellow hexagons we all love.
It takes 8 pounds of honey to make just 1 pound of wax… so fresh comb is hard-earned bee gold!
Bee Haven 2025
-Truly… bee magic never gets old. 💛🍯

12/13/2025

"Do honey bees actually have pheromones—like a natural perfume—in their feet?"

And ohhh yes… they sure do!
Our girls absolutely have “smelly feet,” but in the best, most brilliant honey-bee way. 🐝💛

Here’s the buzz:
Honey bees leave tiny chemical footprints everywhere they go. These foot pheromones help the whole colony stay organized and connected.
And it’s not just the workers—the queen, the workers, and even the drones all carry their own pheromone blend in their feet.

🐝Queen’s Footprint:
-Wherever the queen walks, she leaves a little chemical trail. This lets the workers know she’s nearby and keeps the hive running smoothly.

🐝Worker Bee Footprints:
Workers use their foot scents like tiny markers:
-to signal which flowers they’ve already visited,
-to help other foragers find safe landing spots,
-to keep the hive’s scent consistent so they can spot who belongs and who doesn’t.

🐝Drone Footprints:
-Drones have their own unique scent too, helping the hive recognize them instantly.
Bee Haven 2025
So yes—honey bees don’t just have busy little feet… they have perfumed feet that help the entire colony communicate, navigate, and stay in sync.
Pretty amazing what those tiny toes can do!

12/10/2025

How is royal jelly and propolis actually harvested… and does it hurt the bees?

These two hive products are very different in how they’re collected and how the colony feels about it.

👑 ROYAL JELLY — the fancy stuff!
This one is made by nurse bees from special glands in their little heads. They feed it to every baby for the first few days, and the queens get the VIP treatment their whole lives.
How beekeepers harvest it:
🐝They gently move teeny tiny baby larvae (we’re talking smaller than a grain of rice!) into special cups
🐝The bees think they need a new queen, so they pack those cups with royal jelly
🐝After about 3 days, the beekeeper goes in and scoops the jelly out

Is it hard on the colony?
Honestly… yes, it can be.
It asks a LOT from the nurse bees, and it redirects their energy away from raising the natural brood.
It’s something only very strong colonies should be asked to do, and they need breaks so they don’t get depleted.
So royal jelly harvesting is definitely a “be-cautious and bee-respectful” kind of practice.

This is why I will never harvest royal jelly from my hives. Also this is why it is so expensive.

🌿 PROPOLIS — the sticky gold! (It's like Gorilla Glue for bees.)
Propolis is what bees use to seal cracks, disinfect the hive, and basically make everything bee-level clean.
How it’s harvested:
🐝Beekeepers put a little flexible screen on top of the hive
🐝Bees feel a draft and instantly go “oh no you don’t!” and fill every tiny slit with propolis
🐝The trap gets popped in the freezer, and the propolis just cracks off

Harmful to the bees?
Not really!
This one is very gentle on them. You’re basically giving them a controlled place to put their extra propolis, and they just carry on with life. The key is not over-harvesting and not leaving the hive drafty.

🐝 The quick truth?
- Royal jelly harvesting can be stressful if not done carefully
-Propolis harvesting is pretty mild and easy on the colony
Bee Haven 2025
Both can be done ethically… but they’re definitely not equal in how much the bees notice!

12/10/2025

Today’s topic is about the extra segment that drone honey bees have in their antennae… and whether they use it to find the DCA (Drone Congregation Area). Let's tackle this..

🐝 What is that extra segment actually for?
Drone honey bees have one more antennal segment than workers, and that extra piece is packed with LOTS more smell receptors. These receptors make drones super sensitive to scents — far more than workers.

But here’s the key:
👉 This extra segment is designed mostly for detecting the scent of a virgin queen, especially her powerful pheromone, QMP.
When a queen goes on her mating flight, drones can detect her smell from several meters away, even while flying fast in mid-air. That extra segment gives them the sensitivity they need to pick up her scent trail instantly.

It’s almost like giving them a turbo-charged “queen detector.”

🐝 Does this help them find the DCA?
Not really.
DCAs appear in the same places every year, and we know they are shaped mostly by the landscape — low open areas, warm sunny pockets, and sheltered spots surrounded by trees. Drones don’t smell their way to the DCA.

They “just know” where to fly because:
-The landscape guides them
-Their instincts pull them there
-Other drones flying nearby reinforce the spot

🐝 Do drones smell each other?
Yes — but the scent is weak.
Drones give off light aggregation pheromones, and drones can detect them, but these are nothing compared to the queen’s scent. Drone pheromone helps keep the group together, but it doesn’t lead them to the DCA.

🐝 To Summarize
✔ The extra antennal segment gives drones extreme smell sensitivity
✔ This is mostly for detecting the queen during mating flights
✔ Drones don’t use it to navigate to DCAs
✔ The landscape shapes where DCAs form
✔ Drone pheromone helps maintain the group, not guide it
Bee Haven 2025

12/09/2025

What Happens When the Queen Bee Dies?

1) What happens when the bees find their dead queen?
The moment they find her lifeless body, the worker bees gather around her, gently touching her with their antennae. It’s as though they’re inspecting her, trying to confirm what their senses are already telling them—that something is deeply wrong. After this brief moment, they’ll carry her body out of the hive, just like they do with any dead bee. Some beekeepers describe this moment as almost solemn—like a quiet ritual of farewell.

2) What actions do they take once they realize their queen is dead?
Once the queen's pheromones fade, the hive goes into high alert. The workers become restless and begin searching for a solution. If there are very young larvae (less than 3 days old), the bees will quickly start emergency queen rearing. They’ll build special queen cells and feed select larvae royal jelly in hopes of raising a new queen.
But if there are no suitable larvae, the colony becomes hopelessly queenless. Eventually, some workers may start laying eggs, but these only develop into drones (male bees), and without a new queen, the colony’s days are numbered.

The hive’s survival depends on how quickly and effectively they can replace their queen. It’s one of nature’s most incredible emergency response systems—and a reminder of just how connected and cooperative bees truly are.

12/04/2025

Another tidbit from Bee Haven's page.

Paradise in the Pines - Apiary and Honey Sales

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