Energise your Skin. Nurture Nature.
Honeybees
Honeybees are an essential part of our environment pollinating plants and crops, and providing source of enriching cosmetic ingredients.
Our Bees
Latin Name: Apis mellifera
Honeybees are known for the honey and beeswax they produce. They live in large colonies of between 20,000 to 40,000 individuals, comprised of workers, some drones, and a queen.
Worker bees construct a beehive from honeycomb formed from beeswax. They use honeycomb to store honey and pollen, and to raise young bees, collectively called brood. In the wild honeybees nest in hollow tree cavities, though in the UK most honeybee colonies are managed by beekeepers due to a lack of natural nesting sites.
Honeybees collect nectar and pollen from plants up to 3 miles away from the colony. To do so, they perform dancing movements to communicate to other honeybees where areas of nectar are located.
Lifecyle
An individual honeybee typically lives between 6 weeks and 6 months depending on the season. They are active from March to October when they can be seen collecting nectar, pollen, water, and plant resin.
The honeybee season begins around March, when bees start to collect pollen and nectar from early flowering plant like Hawthorn. During this time they clean honeycomb to use for raising brood.
A beehive’s population peaks during May, sparking a ‘swarm’ where the queen bee and most worker bees leave the beehive to start another colony. Within the original beehive a new queen is raised. Through late summer and early autumn honeybees focus on creating honey for winter.
During autumn and winter, a beehive’s population decreases, reducing demand on honey and pollen stores. The beehive enters a form of hibernation, where individuals collate together for warmth.
Honey and Beeswax
Honeybees collect pollen and nectar from flowering plant species. Pollen is used to feed brood, while honey is placed in honeycomb to ripen. Once ready its sealed with a thin layer of wax, preserving it until needed.
Beeswax is produced by special wax-secreting glands from ingested honey. Formed as flakes, honeybees use it to construct honeycomb.
Honey and beeswax have been collected and used by humans for well over 10,000 years, firstly through harvesting from wild colonies, and later through hives managed by beekeepers.