You’ve heard of ‘the bees knees’, the birds and the bees, the queen bee, the 50’s songtitle,”Won’t You Be My Honeycomb” and the latest animated cinema film, the “B Movie.”
Aroostook Repbulican photo/Barb Scott
Beekeeper John O’Merara shows his very captive audience what the inside of a beehive looks like. O’Meara, his wife Christine and their four children enlightened the young group on honeybees at the Caribou Public Library recently during a summer program hosted by children’s librarian, Jean Shaw.
What is it about bees that make us move fast to avoid them, fear them, swat at them, yet be in wonder of the tiny beings. As children we all learned of the very important role their pollination plays in the whole cycle of nature , how hard they labor, and of course the tasty results of cooking with the honey they produce (my favorite is spreading it very thickly on a piece of homemade toast already covered with peanut butter).
Last week at a program hosted by children’s librarian, Jean Shaw, kids at the Caribou Public Library spent an interesting afternoon learning about honeybees from guest, John O’Meara, a beekeeper from New Sweden.
O’Meara has been a beekeeper on and off for about 18 years. “At one time I worked on a farm where there were several hives which produced quite a bit of honey, I really enjoyed tending the hives and taking care of the bees.”
After a lapse of two years, O’Meara got his own beehives and at one time had as many as 40, currently he has eight. The beekeeper along with his wife, Christine and their four children, Tommy, John, Anya and Jimmy take a great deal of pride in the art of beekeeping and of the processing of their own brand of honey from, O’Meara Family Farm.
The current concern regarding honeybees is the fact that the once heavy population is dwindling in a variety of areas worldwide. This colony collapse has been theorized to be caused by a number of causes and O’Meara stated two different mites are possibly part of the cause.
A varrola mite is present on the outside of the bee’s body and drinks the blood, whereas a traciah mite attaches itself inside the body in area of the throat and as a parasite it attacks the blood that way.
“My guess that it is some type of virus that is causing these colonies to collapse,” said O’Meara, “something like this puts the bees under a lot of pressure and stress, resulting in them being capable of doing less foraging, therefore causing starvation within the hive.”
Dressed in his white beekeeper’s suit, O’Meara kept his young audience’s attention as he explained to them the different jobs each bee had and how the queen bee lays 2,000 to 3,000 eggs daily and when the drone (daddy) who really doesn’t do much at all in the hive, gets kicked out by the guards in the fall if he has become too fat, because he eats too much, not earning his keep and during the winter the hive must have enough honey to keep the colony fed.
During the program, each youth got to portray one of the four bees found in an operating hive. Those that were workers were assigned the jobs of being a housekeeper, those bees who clean up the hive, ridding it of any dead bees; others were the nurse bees which have the job of feeding the babies or larva, the royal jelly; another job which the worker bees are responsible for is that of being an attendant, these bees must gather around the queen; there are also ventilators which are responsible for keeping the hive cool and the guards, which protect the hive from intruders, such as bees from other hives which are not surviving.
The oldest of the worker bees become the foragers, which are responsible for collecting pollen from the flowers and bringing it back to the hive.
Throughout his presentation, O’Meara fielded numerous questions from his young listeners. When shown the actual layers of the hive, which are framed with wood and lined with wire, which allows the honey to be scraped when being removed, he also showed them a device called a smoker. O’Meara explained that prior to removing the honeycomb from the hive a smoker is used creating a light fog around the bees’ dwelling, this has a calming effect on the bees, making them rest while the product is being removed.
Those in attendance were amazed of the possibility of one hive producing up to 400 pounds of honey a year.
Following the informative honeybee program, guests were treated to two different ways of sampling the honey; one a dessert, the other crackers with honey on top.
Grace Gallagher samples a dessert made with real honey during a recent program held at the Caribou Public Library.
Adia Greer, left, and Arieann Davenport are getting ready to portray a honeybee nurse and a ventilator bee during an afternoon presentation by New Sweden beekeeper, John O’Meara. The youth learned about the roles of the different bees within a hive and also had a chance to taste real honey.
Kaitlyn Clark was selected to portray the Queen Bee,during the honeybee program presented at the Caribou Public Library recently. The afternoon event was hosted by children’s librarian Jean Shaw.
Jimmy O’Meara was very serious about playing the drone bee at the Caribou Public Library. His dad, John keeps bee hives in New Sweden and was a guest speaker during a summer program held at the library recently.
Aroostook Republican photo/Barb Scott
The Caribou Public Library was busy as a bee hive last week when John O’Meara, a beekeeper from New Sweden, presented a program on honey bees, what each bee does for a job and how the honey is removed from the hives.
