80 Buzzing Facts About Bees

1. Bees have been around for over 100 million years, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs.
2. There are around 20,000 known species of bees.
3. Only female bees sting, and most species of bees don’t sting at all.
4. Bees are the world’s most important pollinator of food crops.
5. Bees see the world almost five times faster than humans, meaning they can perceive movements that appear to be in slow motion to us.
6. Bees are capable of recognizing human faces.
7. Honeybees can fly up to 15 miles per hour.
8. The lifespan of a honey bee varies, with worker bees typically living for 5-6 weeks, while the queen can live up to five years.
9. Honeybees communicate by dancing and through pheromones.
10. Bees make honey as a way to store food for the colony over winter.
11. Bees can produce different types of honey depending on which flowers they collect nectar from.
12. The queen bee can lay up to 2,500 eggs in a single day.
13. The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by humans.
14. Bees are covered in tiny hairs, including on their eyes!
15. A hive can contain up to 60,000 bees.
16. Worker bees are all female and do all the work for the hive.
17. Bees will only sting when they feel threatened.
18. A worker bee may visit up to 2,000 flowers in one day.
19. The “buzz” you hear when a bee is flying is the sound of its four wings moving at 11,400 strokes per minute.
20. Bees are the only insects that produce food that is harvested on a commercial scale by humans.
21. Honey never spoils. Archaeologists found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that were over 3,000 years old and still perfectly good to eat.
22. Bees contribute billions of dollars to the global economy through their pollination services.
23. Honeybees can recognize human faces and remember them for two days.
24. Beeswax was used to make the first candles.
25. Beekeeping, or apiculture, is thousands of years old.
26. Honeybees are not native to the Americas. They were brought over by European settlers.
27. Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their central brood nest regardless of whether it’s hot or cold outside.
28. Honey is incredibly healthy and includes enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water.
29. Bees can recognize human faces and remember them for two days.
30. The queen bee often mates with several male bees and stores the sperm for later use.
31. The honeybee’s wings stroke 200 beats per second, thus making their famous, distinctive buzz.
32. Bees have a specialized, long, straw-like tongue called a proboscis, which they use to extract nectar.
33. Bees use the sun as a compass.
34. Worker bees clean the hive, collect pollen and nectar, and care for the queen and larvae.
35. Honey bees have 170 odorant receptors, meaning they have an excellent sense of smell.
36. The queen bee can control the sex of the eggs she lays. She can lay either fertilized (female) or unfertilized (male) eggs.
37. Bees have two stomachs, one for food and another specifically for nectar.
38. Honeybees are the only bees to die after stinging.
39. A beehive can produce anywhere from 30 to 100 pounds of honey per year.
40. Honeybees are known to have a bit of a sweet tooth, and will sometimes prefer to collect sugary food waste over flower nectar.
41. Bees can be trained to detect bombs by recognizing the scent of the explosives.
42. Bees need to visit approximately two million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
43. Bees play a crucial role in pollinating fruits, nuts, and vegetables that we eat every day.
44. One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year.
45. For every teaspoon of honey, a bee would have flown around 900 miles, equivalent to a ‘honey bee’ lap of the Earth.
46. Bees have been used in warfare, released in closed spaces as a form of biological attack.
47. During colder months, bees cluster together inside the hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.
48. Beekeepers often use smoke to calm bees when they are collecting honey.
49. Bees navigate using landmarks and can remember certain features of their environment.
50. Bees are capable of recognizing zero and can be trained to understand simple arithmetic.
51. Honeybees can fly as far as 5 miles for food, but most travel less than a mile.
52. A typical beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year.
53. Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
54. Honeybees die after they sting mammals because their stingers, which are barbed, get stuck and rupture their abdomens.
55. Bees can recognize the color blue better than other colors.
56. Honey is incredibly healthy and includes enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water.
57. Bees are capable of understanding complex concepts like symmetry.
58. Not all bees make honey – only honey bees and stingless bees are true honey makers.
59. During summer, a queen bee may lay up to 2,500 eggs per day at a rate of 5 or 6 a minute.
60. Beeswax is secreted by bees to make the hexagonal shapes in the hive.
61. Drones (male bees) are larger but fewer in number within the hive. Their sole function is to mate with the queen.
62. When the queen bee dies or becomes ineffective, the other bees will “vote” on the new queen by selecting several larvae to potentially become the new queen.
63. Bees sleep between five and eight hours a day, sometimes in groups. They often hold each other’s legs as they sleep.
64. To make a pound of beeswax, a bee may eat six to eight pounds of honey.
65. Bees have five eyes: two large compound eyes on the sides of their head, and three smaller eyes on the top.
66. Bees are cold-blooded, but they can regulate their body temperature by huddling together for warmth.
67. Bees can die if they get too hot. They cool the hive by fanning their wings to circulate air.
68. Bees have a special ‘waggle dance’ to communicate the location of food sources to each other.
69. Bees collect propolis, a resinous substance from trees, and use it to weatherproof their hives.
70. Honey bees can’t pollinate tomato plants – bumblebees are among the few species that can with their “buzz pollination.”
71. The oldest bee fossil is 100 million years old.
72. Bees can recognize themselves in a mirror, indicating a level of self-awareness.
73. Honey was used as an ancient form of antibiotic and wound dressing.
74. Bees’ antennae help them detect the direction of the wind, as well as smells.
75. Bees play a vital role in the pollination of over one-third of the world’s crops.
76. The highest concentration of bees in one area is called a “bee hot spot”.
77. Bees have a strict hierarchy in the hive, with the queen at the top, followed by worker bees and then drones.
78. Bees have been discovered to be better at math than many humans, even capable of understanding the concept of zero.
79. The population of a single bee colony can be over 50,000 bees.
80. Honey bees contribute $20 billion to the value of U.S. crop production.

Originally posted 2023-09-20 21:52:42.

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