Facts About Bees:
- Bees have five eyes (2 compound eyes made up of thousands of tiny lenses (one on each side of the head), 3 simple eyes on the top of the head)
- They fly about 20 MPH
- Bees are insects, so they have 6 legs; and they communicate by “dancing”.
- They have two pairs of wings
- Male bees in the hive are called drones. They die during mating or are evicted from the hive to conserve food.
- Female bees in the hive (except the queen) are called worker bees, which live up about 6 weeks and do all the work. They are assigned jobs based on their age, with 22days old until death are assigned to collect pollen, nectar, water and pollinating plants. Younger ones are assigned to cleaning, feeding the younger / older larvae, carrying food, producing wax or guarding – all based on their age. Only when they are 18-21 days old that they are allowed to guard the entrance of the hive.
- The queen bee can live up to 5 years and is the only one laying eggs. It can lay as much as
2,000 to 2,500 eggs per day.
- An average beehive can hold around 50,000 bees, (usually around 20,000 – 60,000 bees)
- Losing its stinger will cause a bee to die (usually happens when stinging humans as the barbs in their stingers get caught in our flesh, ripping off the stinger and some of the insides of the bees. When stinging other insects or animals, this is not usually the case.)
- Foragers must collect nectar from about two million flowers to make one pound of honey
- The principal form of communication among honey bees is through chemicals called pheromones
- It would only take about an ounce of honey to fuel a honey bee for a flight around the world