Eric Wolf and Tim Bryner are ready to take honey bee rescue to the next level and raise awareness of the importance of honey bees in the ecosystem. Eric has been rescuing honey bees for 15 years, and Tim Bryner started helping Eric two years ago. Eric Wolf owns Country Morning Coffee at the corner of Tremont and First Streets. Tim Bryner is a police officer for the Kewanee Police Department and owns Bryner’s Chainsaw Carvings. The swarm season is normally in the spring, when nectar and pollen are readily available. Honeybees increase their numbers during this time of the year. Honeybees are harmless and do not want to sting you, but will sting if they feel you are a real threat.
Tim said that if the honeybees start bumping into you, they are starting to get mad, and you need to take a step back and let them calm down. Honeybees typically make a hive in trees or the siding of a house. If you find a hive of honeybees, do NOT spray them with chemicals or bother them. Call Eric and Tim at 309-525-1330, and they will come and rescue the hive and relocate them to a safe place. Eric said he would travel out of the area to rescue a honeybee hive. The hives are relocated to prairie lands or to people who raise honeybees. Honey bees will rest on trees, fences, signs, or mailboxes while they look for a safe new home. The hive moves on quickly from its resting place, which is why it is important to contact Eric and Tim immediately and leave the hive alone until a bee rescuer arrives. They rescue and relocate honey bee hives only, not any wasp species.
The Queen lays eggs and then she leaves with half the hive to start a new hive. The Queen bee will start laying eggs during late winter, and when the hive reaches capacity, the hive will make a new queen bee. The queen bee’s main job is to lay eggs. However, she also regulates the hive by producing chemicals that guide the behavior of the other bees. A queen bee can lay 1,500 eggs a day. The queen bee designates which eggs will be female and male. It takes 21 days for the worker bee to grow out of her larval state and leave the cell. If the queen bee dies, a worker bee is fed a special food called “royal jelly,” which allows the worker bee to become a fertile queen bee. The Queen Honey Bee typically lives three to five years. Honey bees typically live 4 to 6 weeks in the summer, and winter bees live several months. A healthy honey bee hive will have around 30,000 to 60,000 bees, which consists of 90% female worker bees and 10% male drones.
The picture above from National Geographic is of a honey bee. Honey bees play a major role in the ecosystem because they pollinate plants and create food and shelter for a variety of other animals and species. Wasps are a species of bee that are more likely to sting you. Unlike bees, wasps can sting you multiple times. Wasps are beneficial to humans because they prey on pest insects for food or to use as larval hosts. However, only honey bees are rescued and relocated. Call the Kewanee Bee Rescue at 309-525-1330 to relocate a honey bee hive from your property.