Several years ago, my parents decided to take up beekeeping. It was terrible. They started with a few boxes and slowly it turned into 25 boxes of bees sitting in our backyard. Every Saturday morning I would wake up and look out of the kitchen window to see my parents dressed in their big white bee suits standing around the boxes holding up frames of honey doing whatever they were doing. I instantly despised the idea of having insects in our backyard that have to ability to make any part of your body swell up like a hot air balloon.
However in more recent years, as I’ve matured myself and gained respect for their idea of fun, I now find bees fascinating. Before you think I’m crazy for coming around to the idea of the little creatures buzzing around, understand that bees and wasps aren’t the same thing. Honey bees are not vicious, they will only attack you if they feel threatened. Wasps will follow you around and taunt you. In my opinion, wasps don’t really have a purpose. But we’re not here to talk about them.
1. Honey Bees are the only insects that have the ability to produce food for human consumption.
Next time you’re at a restaurant and see honey packets sitting on the table to put in your coffee or on your biscuit, check to see if it IS real honey and then remember that it came from the little things flying around in the air that you’re scared of but shouldn’t be. Most people love honey, but kill bees when one flies by. That's a little contradictory, if you ask me.
2. Honey Bees create hexagon shapes in their hives because it is the strongest shape that uses the least number of resources.
They also build their cells at a tiny angle so that the honey doesn't drip out. That’s wicked smart.
3. A queen bee can lay between 1500 to 2000 eggs per day.
The typical life span of a honey bee is about 45 days in the summer and five to six months in the winter. In order to keep a healthy hive, there has to be a constant flow of new bees to replace the old.
4. Each bee only makes about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime.
Look on the shelves at the grocery store and see how many ounces there are all together. Every bee counts if you want a 12-ounce jar of honey.
5. There's only one Queen Bee.
There are three types of honey bees: queens, workers and drones. When first hatched they are the housekeepers of the hive. Housekeepers clean cells and get rid of anything that doesn't belong in the hive. Then they become nurses, feeding and taking care of the larva, which are the baby bees. Drones are bees that came from unfertilized eggs, however, their only purpose is to mate with a queen (not their queen mother that is in their hive) and then they die. When a queen is injured or dies, as long as she laid eggs within three days, the worker bees can take an egg that hatches and turn it into a queen. They feed the baby massive amounts of Royal Jelly. Although all larva are fed the Royal Jelly, when they identify the need for a new queen they overdose a baby to create a new queen.
I know they can be scary when they're flying around buzzing close to you. But honey bees mean no harm unless they feel something threatening, like flailing your arms around trying to swat them. They are probably as scared as you are.
