Bees are wonderful little creatures with so many interesting facts about them. They’re so small and yet remarkably productive. It’s a pity that a large number of people don’t know much about these buzzing insects. That’s why we have compiled a list of bee facts that everyone should know.
For example, did you know that bees have a wonderful sense of smell and can see the sun in a completely different way than humans? Or maybe you’d like to know what different types of honey bees exist. From interesting tidbits to facts that help you understand why bees are so important to the world, this article offers a whole bunch of information to keep you entertained. So if you’re interested in our buzzing little friends, please read on and enjoy.
Top10 Facts About Bees To Get You Started
There are three types of bees in a colony: the queen, the workers, and the drones.
Bees have an exceptional sense of smell.
Researchers discovered a bee fossil that’s 100 million years old.
Bees have 5 eyes.
Bees use the sun to help them navigate.
Drone bees can’t hurt you because they don’t have a stinger.
A queen bee lays 1 egg in 43 seconds.
A hive could have more than 1 queen.
Bombus dahlbomii are the world’s largest bumblebees.
Bumblebees build their homes near the ground.
Facts on Bees Buzzing Around Us
1. There are three types of bees in a colony: the queen, the workers, and the drones.
(National Geographic Kids)
The queen bee is responsible for laying eggs, building the hive, and ruling over its colony. The worker bees — which are all female — collect pollen and nectar and do all the work around the hive. The drones (the male honey bees) don’t do much except copulate with the queen so that she can lay eggs. Furthermore, the worker bee factsreveal that they’re the busiest of all bees in the hive.
2. The brain of a bee is the size of a sesame seed.
(Golden Green)
Nonetheless, they are extremely smart. For example, they can make complex calculations regarding their foraging efficiency and traveled distance. For us, this would take a lot of mental gymnastics. Yet, the bees can do it without much effort, despite the size of their brains.
3. Bees have an exceptional sense of smell.
(National Geographic Kids)
Honey bee facts from National Geographic show that these creatures have approximately 170 odorant receptors, which allow them to tell the difference between the types of flowers they get their nectar and pollen from. They also use this amazing mechanism to communicate within the hive.
4. Researchers discovered a 100-million-year-old bee fossil in 2006.
(Cornell Chronicle)
Oregon State University researchers made this fantastic discovery in Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley. It was a brilliant find as the fossil is among the oldest ones that were found and acknowledged. The fossil was preserved in amber, which is the main reason it didn’t degrade.
5. Insightful bee facts reveal that this family of insects — Apoidae — is made up of more than 20,000 species.
(FAO)
This rather large family includes all kinds of bees, from bumblebees and honey bees to a whole host of other types of insects that are closer to wasps or even flies. It’s most likely that the bees you’re familiar with are either bumblebees or honey bees, but there are many other species out there.
6. Bees communicate through movement.
(ThoughtCo.)
One of the interesting bee facts reveals that they communicate with one another through movement. Some say that it looks like their dancing or head-butting each other, depending on the message that they’re trying to get across.
7. One of the odd facts about honey bees is they don’t sleep.
(discovery gateway)
Instead of shutting down when it’s time to sleep, bees stay conscious. However, they remain still throughout the night to conserve energy for foraging after the sun comes out.
8. One of the incredible but facts about bees is that they have five eyes.
(WUSTL, Scientific American)
The first two eyes are on the left and right sides of their head and are made up of loads of little lenses. The remaining three eyes — each containing only one lense — are on the top of their heads. Honey bees have powerful eyesight that allows them to see UV light.
9. According to some terrifyingly amazing facts about bees, it takes around 1100 bee stings to kill a human being.
(USDA)
Of course, the number is significantly lower for people who are deathly allergic to a bee sting. You’ll also find that you will only ever be stung by a worker bee as drones don’t have stingers, while the queen spends her entire life inside the hive.
10. Bee stings have health benefits.
(WUSTL)
It’s a fact that melittin — found in the venom of honey bees — may prevent HIV. It’s also known that the substance can relieve pain in people who have rheumatoid arthritis.
11. One of the weird facts about bees is that they may change brain chemistry when switching from one task to another.
(ACS)
Bees have to perform a myriad of tasks both around the hive and out in the open. These tasks include things like getting rid of the bodies of deceased bees in the hive, looking for food, and gathering nectar or pollen.
12. Bees can discern and remember faces.
(NY Times)
Bees see people in much the same way we do, which allows them to remember certain characteristics of faces. This cool fact about bees suggests that they can map out features on human faces, which is why this is currently being studied to help with the development of facial recognition software.
13. Bees use the sun to help them navigate.
(British Beekeepers Association)
According to the British Beekeepers Association, bees use the position of the sun to help them navigate. There’s also evidence of their sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field. Bees are even able to see the sun through thick clouds because their eyes are sensitive to polarized light.
Honey Bee Facts
14. The nectar collected from two million flowers produces a pound of honey.
(Matter of Trust)
A single bee would have to fly around 90,000 miles for this amount of honey. That seems like a lot of traveling for such a small creature. But they can’t do it on their own because one bee can only make about a 12th of a teaspoon of honey in their entire lifetime.
15. “Colony collapse disorder” is a phenomenon that occurs when massive amounts of bees leave the hive forever.
(National Geographic Kids)
According to many facts about bees dying out, a great many colonies have collapsed in the last 15 years. It’s scary because we don’t really know why this is happening, and it’s causing a loss of a significant number of bee colonies.
16. Honey bee pollination accounts for approximately one-third of the food we eat.
(Honeybee Centre)
Through collecting nectar, they make delicious honey. We, as human beings, then gather this honey from their hives and eat it in many different foods and drinks. Another one of the fun facts about bees is that there is no other insect that creates something we consume in our daily lives.
17. There are 212,000 beekeepers in the US.
(Department of Agriculture)
Beekeeping is a tradition that goes back 4,500 years. It’s remained popular throughout this time, and it’s through beekeeping that we’re able to gather honey from beehives and sell it or use it in our daily lives.
18. Despite being small, one of the more interesting facts about honey bees is that they can fly pretty fast.
(Bug Squad)
A honeybee can fly at a speed of 15 miles per hour. This is all thanks to being able to flap their wings at around 230 beats per second. Therefore, honey bees can cover a large amount of space in a short period of time, even though they are not large insects.
19. Male bees can’t hurt you because they don’t have a stinger.
(Benefits of Honey)
It’s an interesting fact about honey bees that the male ones — also called drones — don’t have stingers. However, nature doesn’t require them to have one. They barely do anything except mate with the queen bee so that she can lay eggs. It’s a matriarchy in which the worker bees do all the work.
20. You can order honey bees, and they will arrive in a box.
(Alaska Urban Hippie)
This box is made of wood and mesh. It’s designed to keep the bees together while they are taken from one place to another. According to honey bee hive facts, once you receive the bees, you can let them go about their business of creating their hive. Sure, they aren’t traditional pets, but they do make delicious honey.
21. Honey bees die after they sting a human being or mammal.
(Buzz about Bees)
This happens after they sting someone because the shape of their stinger gets them stuck, so they die while trying to get away. Bees won’t die after stinging other insects because their stingers don’t get stuck inside them.
Queen Honey Bee Facts
22. Queen bees live for a much longer period than any other bee.
(National Geographic Kids)
While other female honey bees (otherwise known as worker bees) may only live for five weeks, the queen bee will live for around five years, according to National Geographic Kids. That’s a massive difference in life expectancy between a worker bee and a queen bee.
23. It is estimated that a queen bee lays an egg once in around 43 seconds.
(The University of Arizona)
That’s a lot of eggs being laid in a short period of time. In a single day, for example, facts about queen bees say that she can release as many as 2,000 eggs. This is why the queen is important, as it’s how she breeds new bees for her beehive.
24. The queen bee goes out of the hive to mate with around 30 male bees in the space of 24 to 48 hours.
(Big Island Bees)
After mating with the drones for one or two days, she goes back into the hive. Once she has returned, she will not go back outside or copulate ever again. According to the facts, that’s why you don’t often see queen bees away from the hive as they don’t leave regularly.
25. Queen bees eat a substance called “royal jelly.”
(Pets on Mom)
This “royal jelly” is a substance that comes out of the heads of female worker bees. Sometimes you’ll find that the babies also feed on this substance, but the queen is the only one that eats it as a fully grown bee. This is an interesting fact about how bees feed their queen.
26. A hive could have more than one queen bee.
(Carolina Honeybees)
Two queens can be alive at the same time, but only while the first queen is being replaced. The original queen will be killed, but there may be a period of time when both queens are alive simultaneously.
General Bumblebee Facts
27. Bombus dahlbomii are the biggest bumblebees you will ever find.
(Mental Floss, Live Science)
You’ll find that they grow to be as large as 1.6 inches, which is up to four times the size of the bumblebees you’ll see in the United States. They are immediately noticeable because of their size, and you’ll generally find them in South America.
28. Bumblebees have to eat nearly all of the time.
(Mental Floss)
In order to keep them going, it’s a fun fact about bumblebees that they need to feed on a near-constant basis. Their metabolism is very quick, so if they don’t eat often enough, they will likely starve. It doesn’t take long after eating before they are hungry again.
29. Bumblebees fly slower than honey bees, but they are still quite fast.
(National Wildlife Federation)
Even though they are a little bigger than honey bees, they fly a little slower. However, they flap their wings at around 130 beats every single second, which is still quite fast and can get them a far distance in a fair amount of time.
30. Bumblebee fun fact — they create their homes near the ground.
(Live Science)
They often make these nests beneath compost heaps, wood on the ground, or leaves that have fallen from trees. Next time you’re looking for bumblebees, it’s a good idea to start searching low on the ground rather than higher up. The bumblebee you’ll find the most in the United States and surrounds is the rusty patched bumblebee.
FAQ
31. How many stomachs do bees have?
Bees have a total of two stomachs. The one is a regular stomach for food and digestion, which they need in order to survive. The second stomach is a special one that is designed to store the nectar that the bee has collected from various flowers, as well as water. Having two stomachs helps the honey bees in their daily job of collecting nectar and creating delicious honey. Without it, they wouldn’t be able to grab the nectar from the flowers and transport it.
32. How many bees are left?
As of 2019, it was believed that there are around 2 trillion bees left in the world. Of course, it’s not like someone could go around the world, counting every bee they come across. So, this data was captured from existing hives and colonies that are being watched over or that are known about. Bees are disappearing all over the world, and this is a problem. Some of the reasons that this count is so low include climate change, pesticides, and parasites.
33. Do bees sleep?
Bees do sleep. The thing is that they sleep differently to human beings. Research has shown that they do need to sleep for five to eight hours at a time, much like we do. However, it is believed that they simply stay still during this time to ensure that they save their much-needed energy for when they’re busy. They’ll find a place to stay in this very still state for a long period of time, so that when they do “wake up,” they have the energy to go about their day.
34. Do bees die when they sting?
As previously mentioned above, worker honey bees do die when they sting human beings or mammals. However, this is because of the shape of their stinger and the fact that it gets stuck and they die trying to remove themselves. They don’t, however, die when stinging other insects. Also, drones don’t have stingers, and you’ll rarely be stung by a queen as she hardly ever leaves the hive.
Conclusion
Bees are magnificent creatures who are able to do so many different things. It’s great that we are able to learn all about them with these fascinating bee facts. We hope that you feel far more informed than when you started this article. You might even feel like you want to order a box of honey bees and become an amateur beekeeper. We won’t blame you if you do!
Source - Pet Pedia
