Honey Bee Facts - Beverly Bees (2024)

Here are some interesting facts about honey bees. Enjoy!

  • One honey bee colony has a foraging range of 18,000 acres
  • It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make just one teaspoon of honey.
  • Honey bees visit 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey
  • Field bees visit 50 to 100 flowers during each trip.
  • Honey bees fly 12 and 15 miles per hour.
  • Honey bees flap their wings 12,000 times per minute.
  • Honey bees are covered in hairs designed to trap pollen. Even their eyes have hair on them! As they collect pollen for their hive the bees bodies transfer it from flower to flower and that’s how pollination occurs.
  • Honey is essentially dehydrated nectar from flowers. Bees eat honey and pollen from flowers. They ferment the pollen first and mix it with honey in order to be able to digest it.
  • One honey bee hive visits about 225,000 flowers per day.
  • A strong hive may contain up to 60,000 honey bees.
  • All the worker bees are female. The drones or male bees have only one job and that is to mate with the queen. The drone mates one time then he dies.
  • The queen bee can mate with up to 45 drones. But the average number is 13.
  • The queen goes on a mating flight several days after she emerges. Once a queen bee is mated, she keeps the drone’s sperm alive inside her for the rest of her life. She never mates again.
  • A queen bee lays up to 2000 eggs a day (an average of one every 45 seconds) and may lay a million eggs in her entire lifetime.
  • The queen bee decides to lay a fertilized egg which will be a worker bee or new queen or an unfertilized egg which will develop into a drone.

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Honey Bee Facts - Beverly Bees (2024)

FAQs

What is the honey give answer? ›

Honey is the natural sweet substance, produced by honeybees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants, or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and ...

How many bees does it take to make 1 teaspoon of honey? ›

Enjoy! It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make just one teaspoon of honey. Field bees visit 50 to 100 flowers during each trip.

How many bees does it take to make 1 tablespoon of honey? ›

It looks very small amount of honey, but typical hives contain many honey bees residing in them. It takes twelve worker bees to make one teaspoon of honey. And thirty-six bees are required to make one tablespoon of honey in six weeks.

Do bees have 5 eyes? ›

The front and rear wings hook together to form one big pair of wings and unhook for easy folding when not flying. Eyes – Incredible as it may seem, the honey bee has FIVE eyes, two large compound eyes and three smaller ocelli eyes in the centre of its head.

Do bees have two hearts? ›

There is a heart or, rather, hearts that form a tube running from the abdomen to the head. The hearts work in tandem and are made up of muscle cells that pump rhythmically, creating circulation of hemolymph from the abdomen to the head and back again.

How is honey made of? ›

Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars stored inside the honeycomb. The design of the honeycomb and constant fanning of the bees' wings causes evaporation, creating sweet liquid honey. Honey's color and flavor vary based on the nectar collected by the bees.

Does honey expire? ›

In general, honey doesn't spoil. However, it can go bad if it's contaminated or incorrectly stored. If your honey has visible mold, or if it smells fermented or "off," then it's time to toss it.

Why is honey called honey? ›

That became ancient Germanic huna(n)go, which became honung in Old Norse, and then hunig in Old English. Between Old English and now, the letter "g" following an "i" or an "e" sound has tended to drop away or turn into a "y," meaning that the Medieval hunig became our modern-day "honey."

Do bees eat their own honey? ›

Summary. Interestingly, all species of bees that make honey also eat it. They use it as an energy source, and it is packed with the nutrients they need to remain healthy. Let's take a closer look at their eating process and why bees eat honey!

Is 1 spoon of honey a day good? ›

The recommendation for a healthy person, without weight problems, and who does not base his diet on an excessive consumption of sugars would be to take a maximum of one small spoon of honey a day. This is approximately 10 to 12 grams of honey.

How fast do honey bees fly? ›

Is 2 tablespoons of honey a day OK? ›

Honey is still a form of sugar and intake should be moderate. The American Heart Association recommends that women get no more than 100 calories a day from added sugars; men no more than 150 calories a day. This is a little over two tablespoons for women and three tablespoons for men.

Is 2 spoons of raw honey a day good? ›

Consuming two tablespoons of honey a day can offer health benefits such as antioxidants, better wound healing, and anti-inflammatory properties. A spoonful of honey (about 21 grams) has the following nutritional content: Energy: 64 kcal.

Are bees color blind? ›

A bee is able to see color, because each of these tiny tubes contains eight cells that respond to light. Four of these cells respond to yellow-green light, two respond to blue light, and one responds to ultraviolet light. But a bee's super sight powers go much farther than seeing mere colors.

Do bees have 100 eyes? ›

Bees have 5 eyes

As well as two large eyes either side of its head, a bee has three 'simple' or 'ocelli' eyes on the top of its head. These detect light (but not shapes), meaning that a bee can sense if it is being approached from above by a predator.

Can bees see in the dark? ›

Some bees do have night vision

Other bee species are crepuscular, which means that they are capable of seeing with little light.

Do bees have 3 sexes? ›

There are three types of honey bees within a hive: the queen, the workers, and the drones. A queen bee is the only female bee in the hive that gets to reproduce. Worker bees are all female, and are all offspring of the queen. But there are males in the hive called drones.

Do bees cheat? ›

Bees can cheat by chewing a hole in the base of the bloom to get the nectar, a more direct way to the sugary reward that likely omits pollination. Some commit a secondary rob, as Yellow 54 also did, by entering a hole gnawed by another bee.

Do bees have blood? ›

Honey bees have an open circulatory system. This simply means that hemolymph (bee blood) does not pump through veins but rather freely circulates in the bee's body cavity. Hemolymph does not transport oxygen but rather transports nutrients and hormones to the various body tissues.

Is raw honey safe eat? ›

It is safe for people to consume both raw and regular honey, though it is a good idea to avoid types of honey that contain added sugars. Both raw and regular honey may contain tiny amounts of a bacteria known as Clostridium botulinum. This bacteria can cause botulism, which is a rare form of food poisoning.

Is honey Vegan? ›

Honey is by definition not vegan, since it a bee product, and bees are animals. Here's a nuanced article about how the ethical issues surrounding this sweetener fit into the broader concept of vegan living.

Is eating honey good for you? ›

It's high in antioxidants, such as phenolic acids and flavonoids, which may support better health. Small studies in humans show honey's antioxidants could help improve cholesterol levels, which could help decrease the risk for heart disease, although larger long-term studies are needed to confirm those findings.

Can you eat 10 year old honey? ›

Honey can stay edible for years, even decades, but honey is a natural product, which means it will change over time. For honey, those changes may include darkening color, thicker consistency, and different taste. Changes in honey are actually good signs (so long as they're not signs of fermentation).

Can honey get frozen? ›

Honey can be frozen. It will remain liquid when it thaws out. To reliquify crystallized honey, heat it in a pan of warm water, microwave it, (keep temperatures under 110 degrees) or put it on the dashboard of your car on a hot day & watch it go liquid again!

Can dogs eat honey? ›

Honey is safe for dogs to eat in small quantities. It contains natural sugars and small amounts of vitamins and minerals. It is also used as a sweetener in many foods and beverages.

Is honey ever black? ›

Depending on which type of flower nectar the bees gathered, the honey can range anywhere from nearly colorless to dark brown. For example, buckwheat honey is dark and full, while orange blossom honey is lightly colored and sweet.

Who first made honey? ›

Yet, while the ancient Egyptians were the first to master honey production on a large scale, they were not the first capitalize on the hard work of honeybees. This title goes to the ancient people of Spain, who were robbing beehives almost 5,000 years before the Egyptians were slathering their mummies in honey.

Is it OK to say honey? ›

It is not proper for strangers to refer to others as “sweetie,” “honey” or “hun.” Those terms are to be used by those who are in more intimate relationships, such as boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, grandparents to grandchildren, or by close friends, such as long-time female bridge players.

Do bees sleep at night? ›

Fascinating facts. It was the first record of sleep in any invertebrate. Honeybees sleep between 5 & 8 hours a day. More rest at night when darkness prevents them going out to collect pollen & nectar.

Is there a king bee? ›

There's no such thing as 'king bee' in the wildlife. A honeybee queen is the single most important bee in a colony, as she produces the population in a colony. Studies show that the mating between queen bee and its drone bees are quite complicated.

What is the strongest bee? ›

Megachile pluto, also known as Wallace's giant bee or raja ofu ( lit. 'king of the bees'), is a large resin bee found in Indonesia. With a wingspan of 63.5 mm (2.5 in) it is the largest known living bee species.
...
Megachile pluto
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Arthropoda
12 more rows

Does honey bee dies after biting? ›

Insects have thin skin, so the sting of a bee remains safe, but when they sting a human, their sting is stuck to our skin. This leads to their sting breaking from their body starting from their stomach to their tail end. While the bees fly away, they eventually die.

Do bees get killed for honey? ›

Their exploitation causes suffering and death to a large number of bees. This happens especially with honey, which bees produce by swallowing nectar and then regurgitating it repeatedly. To take honey out of the bees, these animals are harmed in a number of ways, and killed in great numbers.

Who loves to eat honey? ›

Honey badgers, also known as ratels, are related to skunks, otters, ferrets, and other badgers. These voracious omnivores get their name from their fondness for feeding on honey and honeybee larvae.

Is honey in hot water good? ›

Benefits of warm water and honey for health

The best property of warm water and honey is the amazing detoxification properties it contains. It has the ability to flush out toxins from your body, improves metabolism and makes you feel healthy.

Is honey good for your hair? ›

Yes! Honey is good for your hair due to its hydrating, strengthening, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. It has the ability to hydrate and strengthen the hair, boost shine, soothe the scalp, and more.

Is honey good for ladies? ›

Women often go through hormonal imbalance, which is a result of disbalance in testosterone levels, which in the long run affects reproductive health. Consuming honey on a daily basis helps in balancing the testosterone levels, which improves reproductive health, reduces mood swings and improves hormonal balance.

What are 5 interesting facts about honey bees? ›

A honey bee can fly up to 15 miles per hour. A honey bee worker only makes an average of 1/12 of a teaspoon in her lifetime. One ounce of honey would fuel a bees flight around the world. A pound honey is made by 2 million flower visits.

What are 20 facts about bees? ›

Did you know that...
  • Bees have 5 eyes.
  • Bees are insects, so they have 6 legs.
  • Male bees in the hive are called drones.
  • Bees fly about 20 mph.
  • Female bees in the hive (except the queen) are called worker bees.
  • Number of eggs laid by queen: 2,000 per day is the high.
  • Losing its stinger will cause a bee to die.

How many hearts does a honey bee have? ›

Like other insects, bees have an organ that runs down their back, from the abdomen into their thorax and into their head. This is the bees' heart. The part in the abdomen is known as the dorsal heart, while the part in the thorax is known as the dorsal aorta.

Why do honey bees have 5 eyes? ›

The two large eyes at the side of the head (known as 'compound eyes') are used for picking up shapes and colours in the immediate environment, whilst the three small eyes on the top of the head (known as the 'ocelli') are important for navigation and orientation.

Do bees have hearts? ›

Some insects, bees included, have a heart and an aorta (the vessel leading out of the heart) that pumps the blood and gives it some semblance of direction (from the back of the insect to the front), but beyond that there is no circulatory system. The heart floats in the hemolymph along with everything else.

Can a bee cry? ›

The noise can sound eerily like a human scream. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers describe the Asian honeybee's unique acoustic signal, which is called an antipredator pipe. The researchers colloquially refer to it as a “bee scream.”

Do bees sleep? ›

Fascinating facts. It was the first record of sleep in any invertebrate. Honeybees sleep between 5 & 8 hours a day. More rest at night when darkness prevents them going out to collect pollen & nectar.

How smart is a bee? ›

“Our work and that of other labs has shown that bees are really highly intelligent individuals. That they can count, recognise images of human faces and learn simple tool use and abstract concepts.”

Is honey bee a boy or girl? ›

Worker bees are all female, and are all offspring of the queen. But there are males in the hive called drones. Drones fly off to reproduce with other young queens who will start a new colony. There are three types of honey bee within every hive: workers, drones, and a queen.

Do honey bees have blood? ›

Bees also have an open circulatory system, meaning that they do not have veins or arteries, but rather all their internal organ are bathed in a liquid called 'hemolymph' (a mix of blood and lymphatic fluid).

Do honey bee feel pain? ›

Study suggests all insects may be sentient. We swat bees to avoid painful stings, but do they feel the pain we inflict? A new study suggests they do, a possible clue that they and other insects have sentience—the ability to be aware of their feelings.

Can bees see colour? ›

Bees are also thought to be trichromatic, but that bees cannot see red because they don't have a photoreceptor for it. However, they can see the ultraviolet (UV) end of the light spectrum and so so they make colour combinations from blue, green and ultraviolet.

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