Interesting Bee Facts

• There are around 250 different species of bee in the UK – and about 25,000 worldwide! The honeybee is just one of those. Some species are solitary bees and others live in colonies.
• There are more bees in the world than stars in our galaxy!
• Bees are essential to human existence as they ensure 85% of our crops are pollinated. It has been estimated that without bees, humans would run out of food within 4 years.
• Many bee species are endangered - especially at risk from pesticides.
• While honeybees are not endangered in the same way as other bees, they are under threat from pesticides, mites and more recently the Yellow Legged Asian Hornet.

The Honeybee

• The honeybee is the only species of bee which produces and stores the honey which humans consume. There are different subspecies of honeybee around the world which have evolved and adapted to local conditions.
• The bees make honey from nectar which has been gathered from plants and is mixed with enzymes from the bees' bodies. They store it in wax cells and dehydrate it to stop it from fermenting. It is then capped over with wax until required - eg when other sources of nectar are unavailable. The bees usually produce much more honey than they actually need.
• A single honeybee may produce up to ¼ teaspoonful of honey in its lifetime, while one hive can produce anything from zero to 50+ jars of honey a year.
• A honeybee colony can contain from about 10,000 bees in the winter to 50,000 in the summer. The colony usually consists of several thousand worker bees (all female), around 1000 drones (male bees), and just one queen.
• Workers take on different roles and adapt depending on current need - nurses, cleaners, foragers, water carriers, undertakers, guards, scouts, and more.
• Honeybees communicate using waggle dances and pheromones.
• Their waggle dance tells other bees where to find good forage and how to get there in relation to the position of the sun.
• Pheromones reassure the colony that the queen is present, attract nurse bees to look after the eggs and larvae, alert one another to intruders and tell others that they need to assist when the hive is under attack.
• The queen goes on mating flights in the first couple of weeks of her life and then stores that sperm in her body to use for the rest of her life. She can lay more than a 1000 eggs per day during the peak of the Spring/Summer and she decides if an egg will be female (fertilized) or male (unfertilized).
• Drones only task is to go out and mate in mid-air with queens from other colonies. Most don’t succeed, but those ‘lucky' enough to do so will plummet to the ground after copulation and die having had their genitalia ripped out! Drones that survive the summer are pushed out of the hive in the autumn to die as they are no longer needed and are a drain on resources.
• In the spring, a honeybee colony will quickly expand in numbers and will often swarm, which is part of their natural reproductive process. Approximately half the colony (around 25K bees) will leave with the queen and go in search of a new home. Initially they will gather in a clump somewhere while the scout bees go in search of a cavity somewhere. (Humans build hives which honeybees seem to like, but they're just as happy with a cavity in an old tree, or a chimney, or a gap in your roof space!) Once found, they will all fly in, using pheromones to keep the swarm together, and build wax comb in that new location. The comb is used to store pollen & nectar and the queen will lay eggs here too.
• If you come across a swarm, perhaps on a tree, in a hedge, or on a gatepost, you may be able to contact a local beekeeper to come and take it away for you - preferably before it moves into your chimney! They can usually help if it is up to about 6 ft off the ground. Just enter the relevant post code into the following page and get in touch https://www.bbka.org.uk/find-a-local-swarm-collector
• Honeybees do not hibernate over winter; instead they cluster inside the hive to keep warm.
• Workers live for just 6 weeks in the summer, but up to 6 months over winter. The queen can live for up to 4-5 years, but is usually superseded after a year or two.
• A honeybee worker sting has a barb on it, so once used it is pulled from the bee's body and the bee dies. The sting includes a venom sack which continues to pump for 15 secs when detached from the bee. So if you ever get stung, it's a good idea to scrape your nail across the sting asap to remove it.