ort reminder.
Honeybees are social insects that live in colonies, each consisting of:
- The queen, whose main activity is egg-laying, up to 2,000/day,
- 20,000–80,000 workers, all of which are females and
- 300–1,000 males (drones), whose sole responsibility is fertilisation.
- The queen will normally live for between 1 and 4 years, while a worker bee will live for 6–8 weeks in the summer and 4–6 months in the winter.
- Without a queen, the colony will eventually die.
- The workers perform a multitude of tasks, including tending to the queen, feeding larvae, feeding drones, nectar ripening, producing heat, collecting water, beehive-cleaning, guard duty, and field collection of pollen and nectar. A single honeybee may collect 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
- The “drones” would die of starvation if the workers stopped feeding them.
- Bees have personalities! Despite the phrase “busy as a bee”, even within a colony there will be workers and shirkers!
- Honeybees’ wings beat 11,400 times per minute, this making their distinctive buzz.
- Bees can recognise human faces.
- Bees are nature’s most economical builders – honeycombs are among the most efficient structures in nature; their walls meet at a precise 120-degree angle, making a perfect hexagon.
- Bees fly outside the hive normally when temperatures rise above 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius).
- Honeybees do not hibernate, but cluster for warmth. They remain active all winter. #### Be grateful!
Now that you know them a bit better, please take due note of the fact you can do something to protect the bees and, by the way, a key ring in the life transmission chain.
There would be many ways how to show gratitude to bees. Why not just click here and take a quick look at the six big ways how to do so that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization provides.
Please love bees, don’t panic if they fly close to you, they would not harm you unless you attack them.
And always remember that they are working to ensure your food, your health and, by the way, alleviate the huge suffering that homo sapiens is causing to Mother Nature!