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About Bees

BeeWord Bee Facts - Interesting Facts about Bees:

What is a Bee: A bee is a flying, hairy-bodied insect, of the order Hymenoptera, superfamily Apoidea. They are are social and solitary species which are important for their role in pollination and for producing honey.

. The common honeybee (Apis mellifica) lives in swarms, each of which has its own queen, its males or drones, and its very numerous workers, which are barren females.

. There are nearly 20,000 known species of bees.

. The bee is found on every continent of the world except Antarctica and in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants.

. They feed on nectar and pollen.

. Nectar is a sweetish secretion of blossoms from which bees make honey.

. Pollen is a fine powder produced by the anthers of seed-bearing plants.

. Bees have a long proboscis (like a tongue) that enables them to obtain the nectar from flowers.

. It is estimated that 33% of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees.

. The survival of bees is threatened by parasites, pesticides, viruses, habitat loss, and grazing practices.

. Several species of bees are endangered.

. Bee stings: Although a bee sting can be deadly to those with allergies, virtually all bee species are non-aggressive if undisturbed and many cannot sting at all.

. A honey bee queen may lay 2000 eggs per day

.The most common types of bees are in the following list:
    . Honeybee
    . Carpenter bee
    . Ground bees
    . Parasitic bees
    . Digger bee
    . Sweat bees
    . Africanized honeybees


. Bees are the favorite meal of the bee-eater bird, kingbirds, mockingbirds, beewolves and dragonflies.

. There are three kinds of bee in a hive: Queen, Worker and Drone
    . The Queen bee lays eggs.

    . The Worker bees are all female and they do all the work for the hive including cleaning, feeding the babies, feeding and taking care of the queen, building, repairing honeycombs, collecting water, pollen and nectar and making honey.

    . The drone bees are all male and don’t do any work. They spend their entire lives eating honey and waiting for the opportunity to mate with the queen.


. If a worker bee uses her stinger, she normally will die as the stinger is barbed and when the bee attempts to fly away some of the bees body pulls out as the stinger stays in the stung object.

. Bees have 2 pairs of wings.

. A honeybee can fly 24km / 15mph.

. The wings of a honeybee beat 200 times per second or 12,000 beats per minute.

. Beeswax is produced by the bees. Beeswax is a yellow to brown wax secreted by honeybees to build honeycombs.

. A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal waxen cells used to hold their honey and their eggs.