Honey Bee Trivia
Honey bees
- are the only insects that make a human food product.
- will fly two miles in any direction to find nectar and pollen
- can fly approximately 7 miles per hour, which requires them to beat their wings 190 times per second
- will fly approximately 500 miles in their lifetime, before their wings fatigue and they perish.
- only live 5-6 weeks during the foraging season and several months during the winter.
- only make 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime. Therefore, it takes 768 bees to make 1 pound of honey.
- must visit approximately 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
- maintain the internal temperature of the hive to a maximum of 90 deg. F, by fanning their wings to move air across water that they have strategically deposited in the hive (i.e. evaporative cooling).
- account for 80% of all insect pollination in the world.
- get their food from flowers in the form of energy-rich nector (their carbohydrate) and pollen (their protein).
- larvae receives an estimated 10,000 meals during the larva stage.
A Queen bee:
- develops from a specially selected larva which is fed Royal Jelly (a combination of nectar and pollen)
- can lay from 1000-1500 eggs per day (some sources say up to 2000)
- can live 3-4 years and lay millions of eggs
- only mates once, during her nuptial flight, and will mate with up to 13 drones
- can lay fertilized eggs, which develop into female bees (Workers)
- can lay un-fertilzed eggs, which develop into male bees (Drones)
- never feeds herself but is fed by the royal attendant bees.
- does not have a barbed stinger. They have a dagger which she only uses to kill other queens.
A Worker (female) bee:
- performs ALL of the tasks required to maintain and grow the colony. Their roles include being: Nurses, Guards, Grocers, Housekeeping, Builders, Royal Attendants, Undertakers (Mortuary), Foragers, Scouts, etc.
- has a barbed stinger. If you are stung by a honey bee, it was a female bee, and she will die immediately after stinging you.
A Drone (male) bee:
- only has one job - to mate with a queen.
- dies during the mating process (the queen dismembers them)
- is driven from hive in winter to starve because they would eat too much of the stored honey over the winter
- does not have a stinger
During the peak of the foraging season each colony can have:
- up to 80,000 worker bees (hardworking females)
- 1 very busy queen bee
- a few lazy, but essential, drones (males)
California Almond Pollination Overview
According to the Almond Board of California (2014):
The single most important factor determining a good almond crop yield is pollination
during the bloom period. California beekeepers alone cannot supply enough pollinators for
this critical need, which is why honey bees are transported from across the United States to the San Joaquin Valley each year. Approximately 1.6 million colonies of honey bees are
placed in California Almond orchards at the beginning of the bloom
period to pollinate the crop. This amounts to 50-60% of the managed colonies in the United States.
- The honey bee colonies are transported on flat-bed eighteen wheelers, each carrying upwards of 544 colonies.
- This requires approximately 3000 eighteen wheelers, to transport the 1.6 million colonies.
The real concern is that when 50-60% of the United States honey bees are in California, what is pollinating the rest of the country's agricultural crops, flowers, etc.
Excerpts from multiple beekeeping sources &
http://www.almonds.com/growers/pollination
- - Farm Raised Rabbits
- - Farm Raised Quail
- - Honey Bee Educational Information
- --> What Is Pollination?
- --> What Are Pollinators?
- --> The Anatomy Of A Flower
- --> What Is Metamorphosis?
- --> Honey Bee Trivia
- --> What Does A Queen Honey Bee Look Like?
- --> How Do Honey Bees Communicate?
- --> What Causes Honey Granulation?
- --> Can I Feed My Baby Honey?
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