BEE FACTS

• There are more than 20,000 species of bees and they are found all over the world except in Antarctica.
  
  
• Bees are flying insects and most bees fly an average of 21km to 24km per hour.
  
  
• A bee's wing beat 180 times per second.
  
  
• Bees have three single eyes on top of their heads and two huge compound eyes so they can see colours, patterns and movements. Bees see all colours of the spectrum except red, but they are also sensitive to ultraviolet light. Bees have biting jaws called mandibles and a mouth-tongue proboscis, which they use for sucking and lapping.
  
  
• Bees can distinguish very slight differences in sweet and bitter tastes and can identify sour and salty tastes. Bees have no ears, they can senses the vibrations of the surfaces on which they alight.
  
  
• Honeybees range from about half and inch to one inch long, depending on the species. Bees living in man-made hives behave no differently than bees in the wild.
  
  
• Honeybees are divided into three groups in the hive - the queen, the workers and the drones. The workers are female bees that do not lay eggs but do all the work necessary for the upkeep and protection of the hive.
  
  
• The queen lays up to 2,000 eggs per day at a rate of 5 or 6 minute; between 175,000 and 200,000 eggs are laid per year. The queen may mate with up to 17 drones over a one or two day period of mating flights. The queen stores the sperms from her mating spreee, giving her a lifetime supply. When the eggs hatch, the larvae are fed royal jelly or bee milk.
  
  
• A bee travels an average of 1,600 round trips to produce 28g of honey
  
  
• Honey bees visit about two million flowers to make 0.4kg of honey.
  
  
• To produce 0.9kg of honey, bees travel a distance equivalent to four times around the world.
  
  
• Bees from the same hive visit about 225,000 flowers a day. One bee usually visits between 50 and 1,000 flowers per day.
  
  
• About 3.6kg of honey is consumed by bees to produce 0.4kg of beeswax.
  
  
• Worker bees are all female. The worker bees cap each cell with wax and the larva inside spins a silk cocoon and becomes a pupa. At about 10 to 16 days old the workers start producing wax, which is softened by chewing and used to repair and construct cells.
  
  
• A worker bee lets others know about a new source of food it has discovered by rapidly vibrating its wings and performing a dance to relate the distance and in which direction the food is. A 20-day-old worker may become a guard a the entrance to the hive. A worker may live several months, but when there are large amounts of nectar and pollen to be gathered, she may work too hard and live for only six weeks.
  
  
• Bees do not sleep. They can be found resting in empty cells.
  
  
• There are 40,000 to 60,000 bees in a beehive during the honey gathering season.
  
  
  
  Honey Bee
  Honey
  Royal Jelly
  
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