Even though this is my writing blog, I must include a little buzz about honeybees. After 7 years of beekeeping, I've learned an incredible amount about these amazing creatures, and continue to learn ever more.
A BIT OF HONEYBEE TRIVIA
* Lotta Bees
There can be up to 80,000 bees in a single hive during the summer months. A queen can lay upwards of 250,000 eggs per year, possibly more than a million during her lifetime.
* Girl power
95% of honeybees are female. One is the queen and the rest of the girls are worker bees. These workers do all the work in the hive: cleaning, feeding & grooming the queen, tending to the larvae, guarding the hive, foraging for nectar & pollen, making honey & beeswax, heating and cooling the hive, basically everything other than laying eggs and fertilizing the queen.
* What's all that buzzing?
Honeybees have 4 sets of wings that move at a rate of 11,400 strokes per minute, causing their buzz sound. They also use their wings to fan and cool the hive in the summer.
* They mind their beeswax
Honeybees have special glands in their stomach that secrete wax. They take the wax and chew it up to shape into honeycomb--hexagonal wax cells used to house larvae and to store honey and pollen.
* I have a mother, but no father. Say what?
Male honeybees, or drones, are born from unfertilized eggs. So, they have a mother, but no father. A drone's only job is to mate with a queen, and once he does, he dies. Before that time, he wanders around the hive eating lots of food and doing nothing much else. They are quite large, with big eyes, powerful wings, and tiny mouths. And they do not have a stinger, so are virtually harmless.
* Let's boogy
Honeybees use several types of dances to communicate with each other. A Round Dance tells of a new source of nectar less than 100 meters from hive, a Wag-Tail Dance tells of nectar more than 100 meters from hive, an Alarm Dance warns that poisonous food has arrived in the hive, and a Cleaning Dance is a request to be cleaned or groomed (sorta like the honeybee's version of going to a spa).
* Timeless Food
Honey is the only food humans eat produced by an insect. Honeybees visit 2 million flowers and travel 55,000 miles to make 1 pound of honey. Each worker bee can make in her lifetime 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. So, when you put a teaspoon of this liquid gold into your tea, you are eating the labors of 12 bees. Honey contains vitamins, minerals, and live enzymes, and never goes bad. In fact, an archaeologist found a 3,300 year old jar of honey in an eqyptian tomb that was still edible.
* All the better to see you with
Honeybees have 5 eyes: 2 compound and 3 simple eyes. They have hair on their eyes and no pupils. They see one notch right of the color spectrum, meaning they see ultraviolet, but not red. Their compound eyes are best at detecting motion, so they will visit wind-blown flowers more readily than still ones. Almond trees have nectar that fluoresces under ultraviolet light to help bees know which flowers have food (sorta like a restaurant advertising for business).
* A plea for the honeybee
Honeybees are vital to our food production. Every third mouthful of food is produced by bees pollinating crops; 80% of our food relies on pollination somewhere down the line. We humans should do everything we can to keep these wonderous creatures alive and healthy. Setting up a hobby hive in your garden, reducing the use of pesticides on flowering plants and trees, and planting lots of nectar filled flowers, will contribute to a healthy population of honeybees and other important pollinators.
This one spotted on a wildflower growing in a large pot on my patio. If you look close, you can see the pollen decorating her legs.
Beekeeping Supplies & Resources Link
Cute animatedhHoneybee video compliments of You Tube
Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24
