"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live"

Albert Einstein

Honey bees are amazing.

 

•  - Bees have been producing honey for at least 150 million years.

• - Honey Bees have 4 wings that beat 11,400 times per minute.

• - Honey Bees have 5 eyes.

• - Honey Bees have three pairs of segmented legs used for walking, dust off antennae and transport pollen and propolis (bee glue to seal cracks in the hive).

• - A typical honey bee colony consist of: 

•    1 Queen. Mother of all the bees in the colony, she is longer than the other bees.

•     +/- 600 Drones (male) they are larger with big eyes and make a lot of noise.

•     +/- 65.000 Worker bees (female). They are doing all the colony's work except reproduction.

• - A honey bee colony needs an average of 60 pounds of honey to survive the winter.

• - A honey bee can only sting once, when she stings she looses her stinger, venom glands and a part of her guts and dyes after a few minutes.

• - There were no honey bees in the U.S. They were imported by the European colonists in the early 1600.

• - A honey bee can reach the speed of 15 miles per hour.

• - The honey bees can gather the nectar in more than 300 floral sources in the United States.

• - The comb is produced by honey bees and are composed of hexagonal cells that are only 2/1000 inch thick, but support 25 times their own weight.

• - A honey bee must tap 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.

• - The average worker honey bee makes 1 1/2 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

• - It would take about one ounce (2 Tablespoons.) of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.

• - The U.S. per capita consumption of honey is 1.31 pounds.

• - There are an estimated 211,600 beekeepers and approximately 3 million honey producing colonies in the United States.

• - A honey bee weights an average of 3 grams.

• - A honey bee visits between 50-100 flowers during one collection trip.

• - To make one pound of honey, honey bees must gather 10 pounds of nectar.

• - It takes the equivalent of 8 pounds of honey to make only 1 pound of wax.

• - A queen bee can lay 1,500 to 2,000 eggs in 1 day.

• - An egg size is 1/16 inch (1.6mm).

• - When the honey bees are rearing brood, the temperature inside the hive is 95° F. (35° C.), during winter the cluster is around 85° F.(29° C.).

• - If disturbed, bees will normally chase you about 50 feet.