TIL: One Bee Colony Can Have More Residents Than Palo Alto, California

The post TIL: One Bee Colony Can Have More Residents Than Palo Alto, California appeared first on A-Z Animals.

Spring is here, and that means it’s bee season! Bees are fascinating creatures, with approximately 4,000 species located in the United States alone. They are responsible for pollinating flowers and agricultural plants, and they work together to run a hive and create delicious honey. And — despite the stingers! — they are pretty darn cute.

Bees are valuable insects, and the more we learn about them, the harder we should collectively work to protect them. After all, a recent analysis by The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 28% of bumble bees in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico are in an IUCN Threatened Category. Many more bees may be at risk due to habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and other factors, but it’s challenging to estimate due to the sheer number of bee species that exist.

The planet needs bees. They are an important part of our ecosystem with many unique characteristics and habits. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the coolest facts about this important insect.

Facts About Bees

1. Only female bees have stingers.

2. In fact, female bees are the only kind you’re likely to see, as they are the ones that forage for food, build honeycombs, and protect the hive.

3. Male bees are called drones. They don’t do any work and are evicted from the hive by the fall. Sorry fellas!

4. The queen bee gets a special diet of royal jelly, which allows her to grow fully developed ovaries and lay eggs. This sets her apart from the sterile worker bees (and their simple worker jelly).

5. You may be most familiar with the bumble bee, but there are actually over 20,000 bee species around the world.

6. Bees come in more colors than black and yellow. In fact, they can also be green, blue, red, or black.

7. Wild bees live on every single continent except Antarctica.

8. Bees can travel without getting lost by navigating based on the position of the sun and paying attention to the earth’s magnetic field.

9. They can fly up to 3 miles at a time.

10. The tiniest bee species is the Perdita minima bee, which is less than 2 millimeters long.

11. Bees only eat nectar and pollen from flowering plants.

12. Eighty percent of all flowering plants — including 75% of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the U.S. — are pollinated by bees.

13. Bees visit between 50-100 flowers during a single foraging trip, generally collecting pollen or nectar from several thousand different species.

14. Bees are sensitive to light and can see the brilliant ultraviolet light reflected by flowers; however, they cannot see the color red.

15. Honey bees are the most aggressive, as they want to protect their honey and larvae hidden in their hives.

16. Bees don’t sleep. Instead, they will stop moving completely to preserve their energy.

17. Not all bees live in hives. Some bees simply lay their eggs in the ground, hollow plant stems, decaying wood, or other hidden spots, and then leave their eggs to grow on their own.  

18. Worker bees have varying lifespans depending on the season. They can live for 6-8 weeks in the spring or summer and up to 6 months in the winter.

19. Queen bumble bees can live up to 5 years.

20. The average worker bee will only make 1/12 a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

21. Queen bees will mate with dozens of drones over a 1- to 2-day period.

22. Queen bees can lay up to 1,500 eggs a day!

23. Bees are the only insects who make food that humans eat.

24. Honey has been valuable for thousands of years. Egyptians used it to sweeten foods, heal wounds, and embalm dead bodies. They valued honey so much, that researchers found a jar of honey in King Tut’s tomb, which was still edible even after 300 years!

25. About 90% of bees live alone, with female constructing their own nests without help from a hive.

26. Approximately 70% of bees live underground.

27. A bee colony can have up to 60,000 worker bees, several hundred drones, and just one queen.

28. A queen bee produces and distributes chemical pheromones to her workers. This influences the quality, size, and temperament of the entire colony, setting the bees here apart from others.

29. Drones die immediately after mating. It is, after all, their sole purpose.

30. Worker bees have many jobs, including cleaning the cells, feeding everyone, taking care of the queen, handling incoming nectar, building beeswax combs, guarding the entrance, ventilating the hive, and foraging for nectar, pollen, water, and plant sap.

31. Without bees, we’d lose 100% of almonds and 90% of apples, onions, blueberries, cucumbers, and carrots.

The post TIL: One Bee Colony Can Have More Residents Than Palo Alto, California appeared first on A-Z Animals.