Bee amazing!

When we left Jardin, we stopped by a wonderful place where they keep bees and do tours so you can learn about them. The building was surrounded by trees and flowers and coffee plants. They even have a native bees refuge, an allocated space where they keep the bee nests they have rescued off  houses or trees all over Colombia, which they now look after.

We also visited the beehives to see first hand how the bees work. Our guide gave us bee suits to wear, and after managing to clamber in them, we were boiling! We stumbled down the hill where they keep the beehives (all 190 something of them!) looking more like jolly spacemen than beekeepers. When we finally reached the beehives, we used smoke to stop them communicating with each other which makes them less aggressive, making it less likely they will attack us.

The incredible thing is that our guide was wearing a bee suit but did not wear gloves. He got stung, but by staying still and leaving the bee to pull its sting out, he ensured that it would live (it also hurt him less). We pulled out one of the sections from the main beehive watching the bees scrambling around us, while our guide showed us the different types of bees and how they work. 

The tour was fascinating and we learnt a lot. At the end, we tried several different honeys and one fresh from the hive! Dan and Ioanna even bought coffee which is organic and apparently has been pollinated by native bees.  

Now over to Ismene who is going to tell you some of the things we learnt!

- The bees are responsible for 85% of pollination of all food crops for humans. They flit from flower to flower  

- There are three different types of bees: the worker bee, the drone bee and queen bee.

- Did you know that if the worker bee loses her sting, she will die? (well unless you let the bee take the sting out herself).

- The average bee only makes one teaspoon of honey in their whole life! Isn't that amazing?

- The bees communicate by doing a special dance called the waggle dance because they waggle their bums.

- When the bees sense that their queen is getting old, the worker bees kill her. They then feed lots of royal jelly to one of the female larvae so it grows into the new queen. Eating royal jelly really makes you royal!