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Apis mellifera -

The most common species of honey bee, the European honey bee, bears the scientific name Apis mellifera. Apis simply means “bee” in Latin, and mellifera translates to “honey-bearing.”

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It takes a village -

Honey bee hives consist of three different types of bees, all with different responsibilities. Worker bees make up the majority of the population, and do all of the nursing, foraging, and caretaking in the hive. Drone bees are the male bees who exist for the sole purpose of reproducing with the queen bee. The queen bee is the mother and matriarch of the hive, and can lay up to 3,000 eggs in a single day.

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Differing lifespans -

All three different types of bees have different lifespans, too. Worker bees tend to only live around six or seven weeks, while drones enjoy life for more than two months. The queen bee can live up to the ripe old age of four years old.

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Expert pollinators -

Everyone knows that bees are pollinators, but the extent to which they help the world’s food grow might surprise some. In the United States alone, European honey bees are responsible for no less than 80% of crop pollination.

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They’re not seasonal workers -

While most people understandably associate honey bees with the spring and summertime, it’s not the seasonal rhythm that matters as much as the temperature. Honey bees thrive in temperatures from 60 to 100°F (15 to 38°C), and can still forage for plant matter and pollen in temperatures as low as 55°F (12°C).

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They don’t deal well with the cold -

Once it does get too cold for bee business to continue, colonies reduce in population, and the few that are left huddle around the queen in what is called a winter cluster. Honey bees don’t go into full hibernation, however, and tend to vibrate, or 'shiver,' to generate heat.

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They’re older than humans -

While the first signs of archaic Homo sapiens appeared around 300,000 years ago, archaeologists and biologists have found fossilized evidence of honey bees from 120 million years ago.

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An ancient friend of humans -

Cave paintings near the Spanish city of Valencia (not pictured) depict what archaeologists suspect are honey foragers. This means humans have been seeking out honey bees and collecting honey for at least 9,000 years, since the Mesolithic era.

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A miracle medicine -

Honey and beeswax have been used as medicine since the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Honey was applied to treat all sorts of ailments, from burns and rashes to blindness.

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The first fermentors -

The oldest recorded fermented beverage in the world is mead, an alcoholic type of wine that is made by fermenting honey. Signs of mead production dating all the way back to 7,000 BCE have been discovered in Northern China.

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Buzzing metropolises -

Although beehives in the wild might not look like much, just one hive is home to a whole city’s worth of bees. The average honey bee hive can house as many as 60,000 worker bees, plus the numerous drone bees and their queen.

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Bees communicate using pheromones -

Bees, like a number of other insects, communicate using a method called trophallaxis. Trophallaxis involves passing physical and chemical materials from one individual to another. So as the bees provide each other with sustenance, they pass messages between one another and keep the hive running efficiently.

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All in a day’s work -

It’s a good thing that beehives are so populous, because it takes a lot of work to make honey. To produce just one pound of honey, bees have to collect the pollen and material from around two million flowers, and travel an annual total of around 55,000 miles (88,514 km).

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In it for the long haul -

An individual honey bee travels quite far during a single day, given their size. Daily foraging trips can see a single honey bee traveling up to eight miles (13.5 km) in search of pollen and plant material, although the average trip is closer to five miles (eight km).

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Small but strong -

Not only are foraging trips long, but they are also exhausting and require massive amounts of energy. In order to keep themselves aloft, honey bees flap their tiny wings 200 times a second, and can fly at speeds of up to 15 miles per hours (24 km/h).

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Pollen connoisseurs -

In order to help them find good, high-quality pollen, honey bees have a very involved and complex system for perceiving taste. Bees have taste buds that look like little hairs on their antennae, the front of their face, and on their feet.

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Not-so-distant relatives -

Bees and wasps draw many comparisons to each other, share a lot of similarities, and it’s true that they do belong to the same insect order. However, they didn’t evolve side by side. The scientific consensus is that bees actually evolved from wasps, around 120 million years ago.

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The “waggle dance” -

An amazing form of communication used by honey bees is called the “waggle dance,” and is just as adorable (but far more impressive) than it sounds. When a worker bee comes back from a scouting mission, whether to find a new home or new pollen-rich flowers, the bee performs a waggle dance to tell of its travels.

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The “waggle dance” -

The bee will do a number of steps forward while shaking its backside, then turn in a half-circle, and repeat. Scientists have realized that the duration of a bee’s “waggle dance” is directly proportionate to the actual distance from the hive to the location in question.

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Democratic decision makers -

If a worker bee comes back from a scouting mission looking for a good location for a new hive, it will perform a waggle dance upon its return. If the dance is convincing enough, other bees will start to join the scout in its dance. However, the hive won’t actually move their operations to a new location unless a certain number of bees agree to the plan.

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More intelligent than you think -

Honey bees have a better sense of smell than dogs, which is really saying something. Similar to dogs, bees have been trained by scientists to sniff out specific chemicals used in explosives and can even smell certain illnesses on a human’s breath. Unlike dogs, it only takes a matter of minutes to train bees to indicate these distinctions.

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Bees have a sweet tooth -

While foraging, worker bees usually bring back loads of nectar and pollen for their hive-mates to feed on. Bees have also been known to seek out naturally sugary snacks in other places, such as grapes and blueberries.

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Honeycombs are hexagonal for a reason -

The unique pattern of honeycombs built by honey bees has caused hexagons to become associated with bees worldwide, but why exactly do bees build honeycombs in such a distinct shape? The hexagonal shape makes optimal use of the space and materials available, and provides a strong structure for bees to store their honey.

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Mad honey -

In ancient Roman times, honey made with the nectar from a particular plant, the rhododendron bush, was used as a potent poison and nicknamed “mad honey.” Along the coast of the Black Sea, bees would collect copious amounts of nectar from these bushes to make honey with. Humans that consumed that particular honey would suffer from dizziness, hallucinations, and even death.

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Solitary bees -

Not all bees live in hives. Some species of bees, known as solitary bees, go through life all on their own, except for when it’s time to mate. These solitary bees don’t produce honey, but they are still extremely important pollinators.

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The reclusive queen -

The only time a queen will ever leave the safety of the hive is to move to a new location if their current location becomes cramped. Otherwise, the queen, whose main purpose is to birth more worker bees and drone bees, will stay put deep inside of their hive.

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Why are bees so hairy? -

Most species of bees, including honey bees, are completely covered in tiny hairs, and even have hairs growing directly out of their eyes. These multitudes of hairs are used to streamline the pollen-collecting process. The hairs gather up thousands of miniscule pollen particles from every plant and flower the bee lands on.

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Bees get sleepy -

Just like humans, bees go through daily resting periods where their body relaxes and their brain activity changes. The older forager bees usually sleep through the night, while younger worker bees in the hive take intermittent naps throughout the day.

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Honey never spoils -

Honey is one of the only foods that can last seemingly forever without spoiling. Even honey found in ancient Egyptian tombs has been rehydrated and consumed without any issues, making it a perfect addition to any emergency pantry.

Sources: (Green&Blue) (Buzz About Bees) (Beepods)

See also: Fun, easy ways to help bees this summer

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