Perhaps the only insect that produces edible food for humans in the form of honey, the honey bees are regarded as one of the most hardworking creatures of nature. Honey is effectively produced in one of the world’s most efficient factories - the Bee Hive. It is known to be man’s earliest insect friend due to the fact that it gives us honey and beeswax and also helps in the pollination of plants and crops. There are many interesting facts about the honey bee that will fascinate you. So read on for some amazing information on the honey bee.
Facts About Honey Bee
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Subclass: Pterygota
Infraclass: Neoptera
Superorder: Endopterygota
Order: Hymenoptera
Suborder: Apocrita
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Apinae
Tribe: Apini
Genus: Apis
Interesting and Amazing Information on Honey Bee
- Bees have the ability to maintain an average temperature of 92-93o Fahrenheit in their hive, irrespective of whether the outside temperature is 110o or – 40o.
- Beeswax is produced from the eight paired glands on the underside of the abdomen of the honey bee.
- To search for food, honey bees can fly up to 14 kilometers away from their nest. To look for flowers, they usually fly one or two miles.
- Though entirely herbivores, honey bees may cannibalize their own brood when stressed!
- In order to be able to bio-chemically produce one pound of beeswax, honey bees have to consume 17-20 pounds of honey.
- A busy bee hive may contain anywhere between 40,000 to 60,000 bees during the late spring or summer season.
- The average life span of worker honey bees in summers in about 4 weeks and in winters, it is around 6 weeks.
- The Queen bee has a sperm sac known as spermatheca, in which she stores the sperms after mating with a number of drones during her ‘mating flight’. This ensures she has lifetime supply of sperms and never has to mate again.
- The Queen Bee can control the flow of sperm in order to fertilize an egg and may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day during her 3 - 4 year lifetime.
- Honey bees communicate with each other about direction and distance from the hive to nectar sources through a special “dance language”.
