10 Fun Beekeeping Facts

Did you know that a beehive is the home for around 20,000 honeybees? These bees work hard to produce delicious honey for us to enjoy. Bees are also interesting creatures; they always travel in groups of at least two and will never leave their hive if there are fewer than five. There's so much more about beekeeping that I want to share with you!

One fun fact about bees: they can't fly in cold weather. In the winter, many honeybees die because their wings don't work well with the colder air and there's not much nectar to collect for food. Another interesting tidbit is that a beehive will never produce more than what it needs so if you have excess it means that you are not doing something right.

Additional Facts:

- Bees communicate with each other through their dance, the waggle dance moves tell others where to find food and how far away it is from the hive.

- In order for a new honeybee colony to form a queen bee must mate with at least one male and by doing so will produce a new colony.

- Bees are not the only pollinators, beetles and flies can also do the job but they're not as efficient because most bees have longer tongues that help them collect pollen from deep within flowers.

- Honeybees don't sleep during winter months so their activity is limited to what time of day it is and this may be why they're more active during the day than at night.

- Honeybees are not aggressive and will only sting when provoked or threatened, so don't worry about them attacking you while tending to your garden.

- You can tell if a hive is diseased by looking for broodless frames with honey in it that's turned into more than it's typical deep brown color.

- Honeybees are important because they pollinate 70 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of our food supply including apples, avocados and almonds.

- If you can't find any local honey at a grocery store it might be from bees in China or Russia who produce more than half the world's honey and this can be interepreted as a sign of higher demand for honey.

- Bees can see the UV spectrum and this is why they're attracted to different flowers that differ in color because their vision is sensitive to wavelengths outside what humans are capable of seeing. Honeybees have about three times more receptors than we do with our eyes so it's easier for them to be able to see patterns and colors.

- Honeybees are the only insects that create food eaten by humans but they don't eat any of it.

- Bees have five eyes, two compound eyes (one on each side of their head), and three simple eyespots for detecting light in dark places such as inside hives or under leaves where many flowers they may be visiting are located.

- Bees have a proboscis that they can insert into the flower and extract nectar with their tongue. They also collect pollen in this process but it is then stored on various structures of their body (some bees even store it inside crop sacks).

- There are different types of honeybees, including bumblebees who are the only bees that are able to produce honey and pollen year round.

- Honeybees can fly up to 15 miles in one trip in order to find flowers and pollination service from other types of bees.

- Bees live for about six weeks during summer, but they will die after a few days when temperatures drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit or when it is too dry.

- Bees will typically fly about 12 miles in one day, but they can cover much more ground if the conditions are right and their hive needs them to collect pollen or nectar for food production.

- Female worker bees have a lifespan of just six weeks while male drones live on average six months during summertime when there is a lot of mating activity.

- Bumblebees can live one year or more because of their slower life cycle.

- Bees that are a part of the hive will collect pollen and nectar from flowers for honey production, but they also eat protein rich foods like field mice, small birds, grasshoppers and other insects to get enough nutrients in a day for energy.

- Honeybees can sting over and over again within a few seconds, but bumblebees will typically only sting once before dying.

- Bees are usually seasonal creatures which means that they do not live in one place for more than half of the year and their hives follow them wherever they need to go.

- A colony of bees can be made up of a few thousand to tens of thousands or more individuals.

- When the queen bee is dying, she will lay eggs on the youngest larva so that they can be selected as her replacement and then one day take over control when it?s their turn.

- They make honeycombs out of wax with hexagonal shapes and an area for the queen to lay eggs.

- The queen bee is the only female in the colony that can lay eggs, which helps ensure her dominance over other bees, and does so with a long needle like structure called an ovipositor.

- The beeswax is made from a chemical reaction between secretions of glands on the bee?s abdomen and air, which hardens into wax when it cools down.

- Honeybees are attracted to flowers with many colors because they want pollen that will give them nutrition like protein.

There is so much to know about bees. This is just a brief introduction to facts about them that you might not know about. If you have interest in becoming a beekeeper then you should certainly explore about how to start.