The bee cam is currently unavailable and will resume at a later date.


This video requires the Adobe Flash plug-in to function. To get the plug-in, go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer to install the plug-in.

This live web camera is focused on an observation beehive at the New Jersey Department of Agriculture's Phillip Alampi Beneficial Insect Laboratory in West Trenton, New Jersey. By checking this page periodically a visitor will be able to see if the honey flow is on or if the colony is preparing to swarm. Honey bees are a very important social insect. They are important primarily because they pollinate a variety of food crops.

This camera will allow visitors to see what goes on inside a honey bee hive without leaving their home. Some things you may see are:

1. Workers dancing -- the way they communicate the distance and quality of nectar and pollen to their sisters.
2. Capped honey -- the wax cover placed over the cell once the honey is cured.
3. Stored Pollen -- the bee's protein food. It is multi-colored depending on what plant it came from.
4. Nectar in cells -- liquid in the cells, still high in moisture.
5. Larva -- little white grubs in the cells, baby bees during their growth phase.
6. Capped Brood (pupa) -- a cell with a fuzzy brown cap on it, where the bee transforms from a grub to an adult bee.
7. Drone -- male honey bee, fat with big eyes and a wide abdomen.
8. Queen -- long and slim, the mother of all bees in hive, lays up to 1,500 eggs per day.
9. Varroa mite -- a reddish brown parasite sometimes on the backs of bees. Public enemy #1 of the honey bee.

New Jersey Crops that depend on honey bee pollination:

1. Blueberries
2. Cranberries
3. Apples
4. Squash
5. Cucumbers
6. Pickles
7. Melons
8. Pumpkins

The value of these crops in the year 2012 was $188,000,000. Honey bees are very significant contributors to agriculture in New Jersey.