Honey and clever bees
Tucked away in the small village of Pai Tau lives the beekeeper Yip Ki-hok. He runs one of the very few apiaries left in Hong Kong. To get there, you’ll need to walk towards Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery up to the end of Pai Tau Street. Here you turn sharp left, pass between a few small stalls and follow the way further uphill, still in the direction of the monastery. Eventually there is a sign pointing the way to the beekeeper.
As distinct from European honeybees with up to 50,000 bees to a colony, colonies of the docile Asian bee are significantly smaller and often no more than 10,000 bees strong. The quantity of honey harvested is correspondingly small. In Yip Ki-hok’s garden there are about 30 of the little hives, with more in the forest higher up the hill.
Info
Address Wing Wo Bee Farm, 136 Pai Tau Village, Sha Tin | Public Transport MTR Kwun Tong Line (light green), Wong Tai Sin Station or Diamond Hill Station; Bus 101 from Statue Square, Central, to Choi Hung Estate, then from Choi Hung Terminus with the 3D to Hing Fai House | Hours Daily: 11am–5pm| Tip The big white gate at the end of Pai Tau Street does not lead on to the monastery but to Po Fook Memorial Hall, a modern burial ground with a pagoda at its centre and surrounded by delightful gardens.
With a little luck there’s something to see that doesn’t occur in European hives: a group of guard bees is usually posted in front of the flight hole. And in front of these quite often a wasp hovers, with its rear to the flight hole, watching out for incoming worker bees. The wasp is prevented from entering the nest by a grid through which only the smaller bees fit. When a worker bee is returning home, the guard bees at the entrance stage something like a Mexican wave. Because of their glittering wings it looks like a big wiggling animal. This movement distracts the lurking wasp, and the worker bee passes unmolested.
If it’s not a single wasp but a swarm of hornets attacking a bee colony, the latter will be destroyed in no time at all. But bees are quite resourceful and know how to fight back: if a scout hornet comes too close, as if by command the bees swarm around the hornet and form a spherical bee ball. Then the bees use their vibrating flight muscles to create heat. The mass of bees will heat the area up to 42°C, enough to kill the hornet.
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