The colony

For thousands of years, people have been keeping honeybees as domesticated animals, and they have remained an important part of the cultivated landscape up to today. In Germany, the commercial value of bees’ pollinating activity is far greater than the value of the honey they produce. Even selfpollinating plants have considerably lower yields if bees do not visit them.

To enable bees to continue contributing to the economy, we will have to work together to ensure that they stay in good condition. To accomplish this, however, it is immensely important to know everything about their behavior, about how to keep them and about their anatomical and physiological peculiarities.