Bees are fascinating creatures and are an essential part of life’s survival around the globe. Honey bees are scientifically known as “Apis mellifera”. There are 20,000 species of bees known in the world. Honeybees are the main pollinators in the animal Kingdom. They are super-essential pollinators for flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Bees help to transfer pollen from male Plants to female plants, which in turn leads to plant reproduction. As well, bees collect nectar from flowers and produce Honey. They live in colonies (hives). The bees are social insects and are divided into three members. The Queen Bee, Drone, and workers. All of them perform their specific tasks and help to maintain their colony.
The hive contains a single Queen Bee. She is responsible for laying eggs for the future generation of bees. When the queen bee dies, they choose a new queen bee for the hive or colony. The queen bee can lay approximately up to 2000 eggs per day, and during peak season, she can lay around 3000 eggs a day.
Drone:
A Drone is a male Bee. Drones cannot collect pollen or nectar because of a lack of body parts. The drone’s sole purpose is to mate with an unfertilized queen. They live in the hive for a certain period, and then they are expelled.
Worker:
These bees are females and do all the work of the hive. Workers bees do housekeeping, arrange the feed of the queen, collect the pollen and nectar, make the wax, and build the honeycomb.
Fun Facts About Honey Bees:
There are some interesting facts about Honey Bees that you might never have heard of:
- These beautiful Buzzing bees have five eyes, six legs, and two pairs of wings.
- Queen Bee lives one to two years on average. The Life expectancy of worker bees is five to seven weeks. The average life span of the drone is 55 days, and it varies with the seasonal conditions.
- The drones are stingless, while the queen and worker bees have the sting.
- A single worker bee can produce one tablespoon of honey in its entire life.
- Honeybees are fabulous flyers. Bees fly 25 km per hour and beat their wings 200 times per second.
- Worker bees have the largest population in the hives. They make wax to build the hives.
- Bees play a critical role in maintaining the food chain. Almost one-third of the food that humans eat is pollinated by Bees.
- An average hive can hold around 20,000 to 50,000 bees; while some hives are smaller and some larger, depending on the size of the hives.
- A bee dies from losing its stinger.
Conclusion:
Albert Einstein said about Bees: “If the bees disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left”.
No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more men. Something will go wrong when bees start to disappear from the world. We should save the bees. So, be a beekeeper.