Long Life to Their Majesties, The Bees!

A wonderful social community! 

The related article: To Bee or Not to Bee… Again!, compiles 13 big amazing facts the United Nations provides about how perfectly organised our bees are. Here is a short reminder.

Honeybees are social insects that live in colonies, each consisting of:

• The queen, whose main activity is egg-laying, up to 2,000/day,
  • 20,000–80,000 workers, all of which are females and
  • 300–1,000 males (drones), whose sole responsibility is fertilisation.
  • The queen will normally live for between 1 and 4 years, while a worker bee will live for 6–8 weeks in the summer and 4–6 months in the winter.
  • Without a queen, the colony will eventually die.
  • The workers perform a multitude of tasks, including tending to the queen, feeding larvae, feeding drones, nectar ripening, producing heat, collecting water, beehive-cleaning, guard duty, and field collection of pollen and nectar. A single honeybee may collect 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
  • The “drones” would die of starvation if the workers stopped feeding them.
  • Bees have personalities! Despite the phrase “busy as a bee”, even within a colony there will be workers and shirkers!
  • Honeybees’ wings beat 11,400 times per minute, this making their distinctive buzz.
  • Bees can recognise human faces.
  • Bees are nature’s most economical builders – honeycombs are among the most efficient structures in nature; their walls meet at a precise 120-degree angle, making a perfect hexagon.
  • Bees fly outside the hive normally when temperatures rise above 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius).
  • Honeybees do not hibernate, but cluster for warmth. They remain active all winter.