Chapter 2 · Quiz

Chapter 2 Quiz: The Colony

33 questions from lessons 6–16. Answer from memory first, then check the lesson if you're unsure. This quiz is for your own practice; nothing is graded.

Lesson 6: Queen, Workers and Drones ★

  1. What decides whether a female larva becomes a queen or a worker?
  2. How can you tell a drone from a worker?
  3. Why can't a drone sting you?

Lesson 7: Egg to Adult: The Four Stages and How Long Each Takes ★

  1. How many days after the egg is laid does a worker emerge? A queen? A drone?
  2. What's the difference between open brood and capped brood?
  3. Why do eggs in the comb tell you something useful?

Lesson 8: A Worker's Life, Job by Job

  1. What's usually a new worker's first job?
  2. Which workers do you see visiting flowers, the youngest or the oldest?
  3. Why do winter bees live so much longer than summer bees?

Lesson 9: Inside the Nest: Comb, Cells and the Brood Nest Layout ★

  1. Why do bees store pollen right next to the brood?
  2. Where on a comb is honey usually stored?
  3. Why does old brood comb look dark?

Lesson 10: What Bees Bring Home: Nectar into Honey, Pollen, Water, Propolis ★

  1. What's the difference between the honey stomach and the bee's real stomach?
  2. How do you know honey in a cell is ripe?
  3. Why can't a colony raise brood without pollen?

Lesson 11: How Bees Communicate: Dances and Scent (Pheromones)

  1. A bee does a waggle dance with the straight run pointing straight down the comb. Where is the food?
  2. What does the round dance tell other bees?
  3. Why does smoke calm bees?

Lesson 12: How Colonies Reproduce: Swarming

  1. Who leaves with the swarm, the old queen or a new one?
  2. Is it strong colonies or crowded colonies that swarm?
  3. Name two changes inside a hive that's about to swarm.

Lesson 13: New Queens: Supersedure and Mating Flights

  1. Name the three reasons a colony raises a new queen.
  2. Where does a queen mate?
  3. How does a queen decide whether an egg becomes a female or a male?

Lesson 14: How a Colony Survives Winter

  1. Why can a colony starve even when there's honey in the hive?
  2. When is the riskiest time of year for running out of food, and why?
  3. Why take queen excluders off before winter?

Lesson 15: Honey Bee Races and Stocks

  1. Which stock is known mainly for tolerating varroa mites?
  2. What's the main drawback of Carniolans?
  3. What does VSH stand for, and what do VSH bees do?

Lesson 16: Africanized Honey Bees, and Where They're Found

  1. How can you tell an Africanized bee from a European bee by looking?
  2. Name two behaviors that set Africanized bees apart.
  3. What's usurpation, and what can a beekeeper do about it?

Answers

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Printed in the next issue, or check them now if you've finished.

  1. Her diet: larvae chosen to be queens are fed royal jelly.
  2. Drones are bigger and bulkier, with a blunt abdomen and huge eyes that meet on top of the head.
  3. Drones have no stinger; only females do.
  4. Worker 21, queen 16, drone 24 days (averages).
  5. Open brood is eggs and larvae in uncapped cells; capped brood is pupae under wax cappings.
  6. Eggs hatch in 3 days, so eggs mean a queen was laying in the last few days.
  7. Cleaning cells.
  8. The oldest: foraging is the last job.
  9. Winter bees aren't worn out by foraging and brood rearing; they carry the colony through the winter.
  10. Pollen is protein food for the larvae, so nurse bees keep it close.
  11. On the outer edges of the comb, beyond the pollen band (and on outer frames and above).
  12. Each bee raised in a cell leaves its shed skin behind, and bees add propolis over time.
  13. The honey stomach only holds nectar for carrying; digestion happens in the real stomach behind it.
  14. The bees have capped it with wax; ripe honey is about 18% water.
  15. Pollen is the protein nurse bees need to make brood food for the larvae.
  16. In the direction directly away from the sun.
  17. That food is close to the hive, but not which direction.
  18. It masks the alarm pheromone, so bees can't smell the signal to defend, and it makes them gorge on honey.
  19. The old queen.
  20. Crowded colonies; even a small colony will swarm if it outgrows its space.
  21. Any two of: capped queen cells; the queen slims down and lays less; workers gorge on honey; foraging slows; the hive gets louder.
  22. Swarming, supersedure and emergency (sudden loss).
  23. In the air, at drone congregation areas away from the hive.
  24. She fertilizes the egg with stored sperm to make a female, or leaves it unfertilized to make a male.
  25. In the cold, the cluster can't break up to reach honey that isn't right next to it.
  26. Late winter: the queen starts laying and brood is fed from stores before flowers produce nectar and pollen.
  27. The cluster moves upward through the winter and can leave the queen stranded below the excluder.
  28. Russian (VSH stocks too).
  29. They swarm frequently.
  30. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene; workers find brood cells where mites are reproducing and remove them.
  31. You can't, reliably; only lab measurement or genetic testing can.
  32. Any two of: highly defensive with a fast, large response; swarming much more often; nesting in small, odd places.
  33. An Africanized swarm taking over a European colony and replacing its queen; requeen with a European queen from a reputable supplier.

★ = a topic on the Georgia Certified Beekeeper exam list.

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