The Bees Knees

Lets dive into the diversity of bees, why they are great and why some just might be even better than others. And, finally what the buzz is all about. First off, you may not know that there are over 270 species of bees in the UK. The sting in the tail is that there is only 1 species of bees that makes a significant quantity of honey.

What you may not realise is that Beeswax is actually a harder product to make than honey and therefore a more valuable product to the bees. Honey bees (or to give them their proper name Apis Mellifera) make wax from honey. Young female worker bees have a special gland that secrets wax. First the bees gather and begin to vibrate warming he hive to over 33 degrees. Then the workers begin to eat honey (between 6 and 8lbs of was makes 1lb of honey AKA its valuable), and they secret the wax from this gland. The other workers then come along and build the hive from this wax.

Is it therefore cruel to take the wax from the bees? Well no, if you do it right. Its good practice to replace the wax every few years as it becomes contaminated with old honey, cocoon and other things that may not be good for the bees but are great for our skin. By working with the bee keepers that care we can ensure we get the wax that the bees no longer want and is best for us.

Now for the crazy bit. There are subspecies of these incredible honey bees. Some native to the Uk and some imported. The imported bees can bring issues, they are not as adapted to our climate, they bring diseases BUT they don’t half make honey. The natives (Apis mellifera mellifera or Black bees) are predictable; they are stingy ( they don’t make as much honey) and they are grumpy. This makes them sound like a royal pain in the jacksy however like all good Scots they are hardy and stand up better to our tropical Scottish climate. Now for the funny bit if you didn’t know the unofficial drink of ‘Ard’ Scots is Buckfast a tonic wine fortified with caffeine (nutter juice) which is of course made by monks (yes real ones) in Cornwall? Not content with fuelling many a city centre fight they have come up with their own bee (Buckfast bees) which try to harness the best of both worlds. Great you might say but they are still relying on the importation of the rest of the worlds problems. At Natural Little Bee we want to support our native bees and incentivise the keeping of native species to protect them.

Now for the interesting bit, in case you didn’t think the rest was, their wax is different. Its lighter in colour and its even more of a miracle for our skin. We have run dermatological trials which categorically show this. For the detail and the exciting stuff keep an eye on our black bee project for the developments as they come.