Honey Bees are essential manufacturers of natural honey. Honey has several nutritional, health, and economic value to humans. With these small creatures having a lot of importance to human life. The natural fruit sugars in honey, which is fructose and glucose are quickly digested by the body. That’s why sportsmen and athletes use honey to give them a natural energy boost.
1 Honey Bees Must Gather Nectar From Two Million Flowers to Make One Pound of Honey
To make a whole pound of honey, the worker bees need to fly 90,000 miles (three times around the globe) and visit about 2 million flowers. A honey bee may pollinate 50-100 flowers during one collection trip. A single ounce of honey is all it takes to give the bee enough energy to fly around the globe.
2 The Honey Bee Produces Only 1/12th of a Teaspoon of Honey in Its Lifetime
A single bee produces only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime. Because of these honey bees work together as a colony to make honey so that they make more than just a 12th of a teaspoon. At this 1/12th of a teaspoon per bee, it takes tens of thousands of honey bee workers to get the job done.
3 Remarkable Brain of Honey Bee
The shape of Honey bee’s brain is oval and about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has a remarkable ability to learn and recall (remember) things very fast. Bee’s brains are about 20,000 times less massive compared to human brains. The honey bee brain is a very sophisticated sensory system which gives them excellent sight and smell abilities.
4 Honey Bees Communicate Through Dancing
Honey bees communicate with one another by dancing (movements). Honey Bees Communicate Through Dancing. Honey bee workers perform a series of movements, which is called as the “waggle dance,” to teach other workers the location of food sources quite 150 meters from the hive. Scout bees fly from the colony in search of nectar and pollen.
5 The Queen Honey Bee Can Live Up to 4 years and is The Only Bee That Lays Eggs
There is only one queen per hive and the queen can live up to 3-4 years. If the queen honey bee dies, the bee workers will find a new queen by selecting a young larva (which is, newly hatched baby insects) and feeding with a special food called “Royal Jelly“. This food enables the larva to develop into a fertile queen.
6 Worker Honey Bees are Female; They Do All The Work
A hive of bees consists of 20,000 to 60,000 honey bees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and they do all the work. Male bees (drones) are from unfertilized eggs and comprise only about 15% of the population of a hive. Male bees do not know how to feed themselves and the only reason for being in the hive is for reproducing with the queen.
7 Honey Bees Have 170 Different Kinds of Smell Receptors
Honey bees have 170 different kinds of smell receptors. This is a great number as compared to fruit flies with 62 and mosquitoes. Remarkable abilities given by the special additional receptors include fast identification of signals, social communication, and accurate tracing of food locations. The odor receptors are well developed such that it would detect different kinds of flowers with pollen grains from a very far distance.
