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A single bee
weighs .00025 pounds. 4,000 bees together weigh only one
pound. Each of our hives has 50,000 bees, weighing 12 pounds
together.
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A single bee can
produce 1 tablespoon
of honey in its lifetime.
683 bees fly roughly 32,550 miles to gather 5.93 lbs of
nectar from about 1,185,000 flowers in order to make one 9.5
oz. jar of honey!
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Bees can fly up
to 12 mph. On every foraging trip, a bee will visit 50-100
flowers to collect nectar!
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Bees heat and
cool their own hive to keep it between 93 and 95 degrees
year-round.
Bees are
cold-blooded and must keep their hive at a constant
temperature. In cold weather, bees keep the hive warm by
swarming together to generate body heat and by sealing
cracks in the hive with
propolis.
In warm weather,
the bees collect water and line up in a circle around the
hive entrance.
Using their
wings, the bees fan the water so that it evaporates into the
air. They then fan the cool air so that it circulates around
the hive as a sort of central air conditioning.
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A Queen Bee will
lay 800,000 eggs in her lifetime! The queen's life is
dedicated to reproduction and she only leaves the hive once
in her life in order to mate.
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Bees are
remarkably tidy. Bees are very meticulous. They groom each
other and keep their hive incredibly clean.
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The hexagonal
shape of the honeycomb is the most efficient shape in our
world. The pattern allows for the cells to be packed with no
empty space in between.
Though the wax is
thin and delicate the structure of the hexagonal cells can
hold a tremendous amount of weight.
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Bees communicate
by dancing!
Click here to learn about
bee dances.
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Bees are known to
raid other hives and steal honey! Bees "rob" honey from
other bees if honey from another hive is available (say, if
a beekeeper leaves a hive open), or if times are lean.
However, if a
guard bee from the robbed hive catches an interloper
(detecting the foreign smell of the intruder), the two will
engage in battle - stinging to the death.
If the robber
makes it into the hive unnoticed, she will gain the scent of
the hive (and learn the entrance well enough) that she can
come in and out without being detected as an intruder.
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A Bee's diet
consists of honey and pollen.
Honey and pollen
are the building blocks of a bee's diet. Bees eat honey
because it provides them with energy-laden carbohydrates,
while pollen's protein provides bees with essential amino
acids.
But, the Queen's
diet is richer in honey... which gives her fertility. The
queen's staple food is a special honey and pollen mixture
called "royal jelly."
Royal jelly
contains more pollen and honey than larval jelly (the food
eaten by worker and drone bees).
The phrase "you
are what you eat" is especially fitting here, since the
queen would be infertile and indistinguishable from smaller
worker bees if it weren't for the added carbohydrates in
royal jelly.
