For many of us, honey bees are amazing creatures. Even for the most experienced beekeeper there is always something new to learn about bees.
Below is a “snap shot” of facts about honey bees. All of these facts are available on the wider world wide web; some having been gleaned from scientific papers whilst others are simply commonly know facts.
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A typical colony of honey bees will consist of between 30,000 and 60,000 bees (half of this in winter) |
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Most of the bees in a colony are worker bees, which are female and do all the work |
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The male bee (the drone), of which around 500- |
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The male bee (the drone) does not possess a sting. Only the female bees (workers and queen) possess stings. The stings are modified egg laying tubes known as ovipositors. The queen rarely uses her sting - |
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At today’s prices (circa £200 per colony), a single worker bee costs 4p |
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Honey bees can fly up to 22 mph in windless conditions but typically average around 15 mph |
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The wings of a honey bee beat up to 200 times a second. The frequency reduces with the age of the bee |
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A worker bee weighs around 80 mg and can carry around 70 mg of nectar |
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A honey bee will only make 0.42 ml of honey (1/12 of a teaspoon) in its lifetime |
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A honey bee will typically fly up to 3 miles to collect nectar and theoretically can travel up to 45,000 miles (almost twice around the earth) to make 1 lb of honey |
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It takes around 556 bees to gather 1 lb of honey |
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Around 2 million flowers will be visited to make 1 lb of honey |
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A honey bee will visit between 50 and 250 flowers on each foraging flight |
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In the UK, the value to agriculture of pollination by honey bees is estimated at £200 million a year (£1 billion in retail value) |
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A queen bee can live up to 5 or 6 years but normally only lives for around 2 |
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The queen bee can lay up to 2500 eggs a day at the height of the season |
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Worker bees (the females) live for around 6 or 7 weeks during the summer months and over 6 months over the winter |
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A honey bee has 5 eyes (2 large compound eyes and 3 small eyes called ocelli) |
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A honey bee can detect movement at around 1/300th of a second compared to a human who takes around 1/50th of a second |
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Honey bees can’t see red. The colour range of honey bees is from yellow through to green, blue and ultra- |
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Bees can smell something a mile off. In fact, it is believed that honey bees can sense particular odours over distances of 2- |
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The odour detecting senses of the bee are so sophisticated that the American military have been researching the bee’s ability to sniff out explosives |
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Honey bees are believed to have been around for 40 million years (the earliest know fossil evidence dates back 35 million years) |
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Humans have been “keeping” bees for nearly 2500 years |
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During the summer the bees can maintain a temperature in the colony of 35.5C (+/- |
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Bees can “talk”. The buzz of a bee is traditionally thought to be made by the beating wings. However, bees can also contract their flight muscles and make a buzzing sound - |
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Foraging honey bees are able to “tell” other bees where rich sources of nectar can be found by performing a “waggle dance”. The dance appears to demonstrate the direction in relation to the sun and the distance from the hive |