What are some amazing facts about bees, honey and beekeeping?🐝 Bees have existed for more than 100 million years.🐝 Though bees have jointed legs, they do not possess anything like a kneecap, and therefore do not have knees.🐝 Bees have 2 stomachs – one for eating, and one for storing nectar and processing it into honey. 🐝 Bees have five eyes.🐝 Honey bees are fab flyers. They fly at a speed of around 25km per hour and beat their wings 200 times per second.🐝 Each bee has 170 odorant receptors, which means they have one serious sense of smell! They use this to communicate within the hive and to recognise different types of flowers when looking for food.🐝 There are just three types of honey bees: queens, workers and drones.🐝 Worker bees are the smallest of the three types of honey bees, growing to just 10-15mm when mature. Drones are about 50% bigger, reaching 15-17mm as adults, and queens are the largest — almost twice the size of worker bees — 18-20mm at maturity. 🐝 The average worker bee lives for just five to six weeks. 🐝 The queen can live up to five years. She is busiest in the summer months, when she can lay up to 2,500 eggs a day.🐝 If the queen bee dies, workers will create a new queen by selecting a young larva (the newly hatched baby insects) and feeding it a special food called “royal jelly“. This enables the larva to develop into a fertile queen.🐝 Bees communicate by dancing. To share information about the best food sources, they perform their ‘waggle dance’. When the worker returns to the hive, it moves in a figure-of-eight and waggles its body to indicate the direction of the food source.🐝 Bees also communicate within the hive by releasing chemicals called pheromones. As workers groom and feed hive members, they pass on these pheromones that indicate the health of the hive. 🐝 The queen bee releases her own distinct pheromone called Queen Mandibular Pheromone, or QMP. 🐝 Every bee colony has its own distinct scent, or pheromones, so that members can identify each other.🐝 Honey bees are generally not aggressive — they’ll only attack when the believe their hive is threatened. 🐝 While bee venom is more deadly than cobra venom, it would take more than 3,800 bee stings to kill the average human male. 🐝 Bees navigate using the sun as we would a compass, and because they can see polarized light, are able to find their way even on cloudy days. There is some evidence that bees are also sensitive to the earth’s magnetism and may use it to navigate as well. 🐝🍯 One bee has to fly about 120,000 km – three times around the globe – and gather nectar from two million flowers to make about 450 grams of honey.🐝🌺🌼🌸 A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.🐝🍯 During its lifetime, the average bee will make only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.🍯 Honey is 25% sweeter than sugar.🍯 Honey has antiseptic properties and was historically used as a dressing for wounds and a first aid treatment for burns and cuts.🍯 The natural fruit sugars in honey – fructose and glucose – are quickly digested by the body. This is why sportsmen and athletes use honey to give them a natural energy boost.🐝 The practice of beekeeping dates back at least 4,500 years.🐝 Ancient peoples believed that bees were created from the carcasses of dead animals.🐝 Ancient Egyptians believed bees to be the tears of the sun god, Ra. 🐝🍯 Honey bees and honey are mentioned in different ancient texts, e.g. in Sanskrit texts.🐝 Honey bees are the only insect that produces food consumed by humans.Subscribe- t.me/askmenow
