THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510030124
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
The queen bee has always been the special one in a honeybee hive. Growing from the same larvae that other bees come from, the queen early on becomes the ``chosen'' one and develops entirely differently from the rank and file. A brownish color without characteristic yellow rings, she also grows larger than her cohorts. Most importantly, she is the only fertile female of the bunch.
I didn't realize exactly how pampered she was, however, until C.E. Harris told me about the shipment of queen bees he was getting in from Texas this fall. Every year Harris, who raises bees in the London Bridge area, puts a fresh queen bee into each of his hives.
The eight queens arrived in September in eight little rectangular boxes about three inches long with screened tops. The boxes are segmented into three parts with entry holes in each segment. One segment holds a soft fondant candy.
Since the queen will only eat when fed, she is shipped with a court of worker bees. The bees run back and forth between the fondant and their majesty, feeding her as the package makes its way by mail to Virginia.
``She would fret herself to death in a little while,'' Harris said, ``if you shipped her alone. She is definitely not a solitary insect.''
Harris introduces the new queen to the hive by first calming the bees with smoke. He recognizes the old queen by size and color and removes her from the hive. Then he inserts the queen in a small wire cage in an area where young larvae are being fed by nurse bees and he expects the nurse bees will be more apt to feed the queen, too. The wire cage protects the queen at first in case she is not accepted by the other bees.
Usually within six days , however, they've crowned her queen and she can be released, he said, having never missed a meal.
A BALD-FACED HORNET is not an insect I want to cozy up to, but the other day, I was nose to nose with one and saw the distinct black and white pattern on its face, thus the name ``bald-faced.''
Dutch Biemesderfer, who lives down in Blackwater, has a hornets' nest up against a window in his house. You can see the feisty hornets without risking life and limb in the same way you can see honey bees in a glass demonstration hive.
The huge papery nest hangs from the brick facing of the house down over the window glass. The nest molds neatly around the brick edge and then around each edge of the window frame molding and down the pane. A round entrance hole is at the bottom of the oval nest.
But it's really only half a nest, incomplete on the back or glass side. Inside the house, you can see neat, concentric circles of papery runways that appear to be additions to the nest. An oval in the center looked like a nursery earlier in the summer, Biemesderfer said.
``That's where I saw what looked like the young-uns,'' he added. ``The hornets were coming in and out all the time, messing with them.''
The nest began last spring as a small round ball, hanging from the brick like a Christmas ornament, and grew over the summer. As with bees, female hornets are the chosen ones. When winter comes, the whole colony dies except for mated females.
They winter over in the earth and come spring, each female starts the cycle again. She builds a little nest like the one Biemesderfer saw, lays her eggs and as the family grows, so does the nest.
IT SEEMS GREEN LYNX SPIDERS may not be as rare as first thought in this area. Since the column on the spider that had never been recorded in Virginia Beach, a few folks called to say they had one in their yards.
Among them was Pat Berson, a sixth-grade science teacher at Kemps Landing Magnet School. A student brought a green lynx spider which is being kept in a terrarium in the classroom. ``She's a voracious eater and they love to bring in food for it to eat,'' Berson said.
Sue Barton Harris, who lives on Sandbridge Road, had been wondering what the odd spider was on her tomato plant and identified it from the photo in the paper. The spider was protecting an egg sac under her abdomen. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen and what do you know about Tidewater
lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter category 2290. Or, send to my
Internet address: mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: ABOVE: C.E. Harris, who raises bees in the London Bridge area,
introduces the new queen to the hive by first calming the bees with
smoke. He recognizes the old queen by size and color and removes her
from the hive. Then he inserts the new queen in a small wire cage in
case she is not accepted by the other bees.
LEFT: Dutch Biemesderfer, who lives in Blackwater, has an
up-close-and-personal view of the inside of this huge bald-faced
hornets nest from inside of his house.
Photos by MARY REID BARROW
by CNB