#1
The honeybee has been around for 30 million years.

#2
It is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.

#3
Honeybees are environmentally friendly and are vital as pollinators.

#4
They are insects with a scientific name - Apis mellifera.

#5
It takes about 556 workers to gather 1 pound of honey from about 2 million flowers.
Top

#6
The honeybee's wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.

#7
A honeybee can fly for up to five miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.  She would have to fly around 90,000 miles - three times around the globe - to make one pound of honey.

#8
The average honeybee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

#9
Worker honeybees are all female. They do all the manual work.
Top

#10
Worker honeybees live for only about 30-60 days in the spring or summer but can average about 140 days during the winter. 

#11
The male honeybees are called drones.  They do no manual work and have no stinger.  It is thought that their main physical purpose is to mate with a virgin queen, however, they have a further role that is still unknown to man.

#12
Only worker bees sting, and only if they feel threatened. They die once they sting.  Queens have a stinger, but don���t use it to help defend the hive.

#13
A honeybee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.
Top

#14
The queen bee lives for about 2-3 years and is the only bee that lays eggs.   She is the busiest in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum strength, and can lay up to 2500 eggs per day.

#15
A colony of bees consists of 20,000-60,000 honeybees and one queen.

#16
Each honeybee colony has a unique odor for members��� identification.

#17
It is estimated that 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.

#18
Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing".
Top

#19
During winter, honey bees feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm. They need about 50 pounds of honey to survive through the winter.

#20
Honeybees must consume about 17-20 pounds of honey to be able to biochemically produce each pound of beeswax.

#21
Honeybees produce beeswax from eight paired glands on the underside of their abdomen
Top

#22
The queen may mate with up to 17 drones over a 1-2 day period of mating flights.

#23
The western honey bee is called apis mellifera, which means honey-carrying bee. This really should be apis mellifica which means honey-making bee. Carolus Linnaeus recognized his mistake and changed it but scientists do not like to change names once they are established so the mistaken name is used today. Honey bees do not carry honey. What they carry is nectar, as we all know.

#24
Honey bees have an excellent sense of time. Many plants do not produce nectar all day long but only at certain times, such as in the morning or afternoon. They know when to go to the source of food so do not waste time on unnecessary collecting flights. You can test this by putting out food at the same time each day.
Top

#25
Tracheal mites, Acarapis woodi, complete their whole life cycle inside the breathing tubes of adult honey bees. They were first found in the USA in Texas on July 3, 1984.

#26
On each trip out to forage the bee will go to only one type of plant. For example she will not mix apple pollen with plum pollen. It is interesting to note she will go to two different colors of plum blossoms on the same trip so it isn���t the blossom color that tells her.

#27
Brain comparison

• Bee Weight 0.001g - %of Body 5v/v - Neurons 1M
• Keeper Weight 1400g- %of Body 2w/w -Neurons.1MM
• Rat Weight 2g- %of Body.5w/w -Neurons 150M
  Top

#28
It takes 8 to 10 pounds of nectar to make a pound of honey.

• It takes 8 to 10 pounds of honey to make a pound of beeswax.
• To produce a pound of honey, bees travel about 55,000 miles, and visit some 2 million flowers.

#31
Tradition holds the famous Delphic Oracle was revealed by a swarm of bees, and the Pythia or divinatory priestesses in Delphi's temple of Apollo were affectionately called 'Delphic Bees', while virgin priestesses of Greek Goddesses like Rhea and Demeter were called melissai, 'bees'; the hierophants essenes,'king bees'.

#32
The California Buckeye is undoubtedly the greatest cause of loss of bees from plant poisoning in California. It is not related to the Ohio buckeye tree.
Top