The Buzz About Bees

Despite bee-ing such a small state, Rhode Island hosts a wide range of bee species, with 183 documented species including bumble, sweat, carpenter, squash and mining bees.  

Bees are broken into two categories, social and solitary. Social bees are those that live in complex colony systems where there can be more than one generation present at a time. A colony is made up of a queen, worker bees and drone bees. While most of us imagine these colonies as large, some species form colonies that include just a queen and a worker bee. Solitary bees account for the majority of bee species. A female bee of this kind will individually make a nest, lay her eggs and provide food for her young. Solitary bees have a much shorter life cycle than social bees which makes them highly efficient pollinators. They are specialized pollinators, working fast and requiring plants that bloom during the flight period of their life cycle.  

Most managed colonies, like the one seen here at AgInnovation, are Honey Bees. They are preferred for this as their nests are perennial, meaning they survive the winter and do not restart a nest each season. Since these bees were introduced to North America, any colonies that leave managed hives and exist in the wild are referred to as feral. Honey bee nests are made completely of wax from the bees that is shaped into its complex comb structure. Each individual cell in the comb is identical in size, depth and shape.