--- title: Honey and the beekeeper's year — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Honey and the beekeeper's year», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A beekeeper's year follows the bees. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Honey and the beekeeper's year # Honey and the beekeeper's year Lesson 344 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 21 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/0/) — A beekeeper's year follows the bees. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/1/) — On the first warm, calm day of spring she lifts the lid, puffs a little smoke and looks for tiny eggs standing like grains of rice in the cells, the sign that the queen is laying. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/2/) — By midsummer the colony can grow from about 10,000 bees to 50,000 or more. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/4/) — Bees carry it home, pass it from bee to bee and fan it with their wings until most of the water is gone. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/5/) — One worker makes only about a twelfth of a teaspoon in her whole life, so a jar of honey is the work of thousands of bees. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/6/) — In late summer the beekeeper slices the wax caps off heavy frames and spins the honey out in a drum called an extractor. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/7/) — In autumn she checks for mites and weighs the hive, and in winter the bees huddle in a ball and shiver to keep warm, living on the honey they saved. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/8/) — Look closely at one honeybee and you can count six legs, four wings and five eyes. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/9/) — And the cartoon bear who eats honey straight from a pot? - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/10/) — Real honey sits in wax cells, and the bees would not hand it over so politely. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/11/) — In spring a beekeeper checks that the queen is laying by looking for tiny eggs like grains of rice at the bottom of cells, and waits for a warm, calm day so the babies are not chilled; the colony grows from about 10,000 to 50,000 or more by midsummer. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/12/) — Smoke hides the alarm smell of guard bees, and bees gorge on honey when they smell smoke, so they are fuller and calmer. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/13/) — A honeybee has six legs, four wings and five eyes, two big ones on the sides and three tiny ones on top of its head, and its two pairs of wings hook together in flight. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/14/) — Beekeepers mark the queen with a coloured dot whose colour shows the year she was born, using white, yellow, red, green and blue in turn. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/16/) — An extractor is a drum that spins honey out of the uncapped cells, saving the wax comb so the bees can refill it, and a strong hive in a good summer can give about 20 kilograms or more. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/17/) — Bees turn nectar into honey by passing it from bee to bee, adding body chemicals and fanning it until most of the water is gone, and one worker makes only about a twelfth of a teaspoon in her life. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/19/) — Honey that turns hard and grainy has crystallised and is not bad; it has so much sugar and so little water that germs cannot grow, and warm water melts the crystals. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/20/) — The varroa mite, about the size of a pinhead, feeds on bees and spreads bee diseases; it came from Asia and spread around the world. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/21/) — In autumn the beekeeper lifts the hive to check its weight, to be sure the bees have enough food for winter. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/22/) — Honeybees do not hibernate; in winter they huddle in a ball and shiver their flight muscles to make heat, and winter workers can live several months. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/23/) — Honey must not be given to babies under one year, because it can carry tiny resting germs that a baby's gut cannot yet stop. - ← previous: [Where meat and fish come from, told honestly](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/343-where-meat-and-fish-come-from-told-honestly/) - next →: [Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)