Bee Information Fact Sheet
Parts of the Bee (see artist's sculpture)

Six legs (3 each side of thorax) - hairs & pollen sacks for collecting pollen
3 body parts: head, thorax (chest), abdomen (has wax glands for making wax cells in
hive).
 Wings

Antennae - for feeling/sensing

Eyes - on sides of head, millions of lenses-blurred but coloured vision

Proboscis - straw like tongue (sucking up nectar/eating honey/feeding each other
and larvae)

Sting - if uses it will die as attached organs are torn from body and left in
animal/human attacking hive. Individual bees will die to defend colony. Stinger
carries on injecting venom, so remove quickly.
Life Cycle (21 days for Worker, 16 days for Queen, 24 for Drones)
1) Eggs laid in wax cell called brood cell by Queen
2) Larva - fed bee milk (gland bee's head) also called Royal jelly
- bee bread ( mixture of pollen, nectar, chemicals)
- fed by worker bees =nurse bees
3) Pupa (after been in cocoon?)
4) Chews wax cap of cell to get out
Bee Castes
1) Queen - (only one per hive) - her job=lay eggs
- Life span 1-2 years
- body bigger to hold eggs so too heavy to fly except on:
a) mating flight
b) Leave hive to find new sites, body shrinks
- Summer lays up to 2000 eggs a day. End of season laid 200,000
- Eggs laid in brood cells in centre of hive so can control temperature
- New queen - eggs in special Queen brood cells (longer) ONLY fed Royal Jelly
(bee milk) but no bee
- Bread. First Queen chews out of cell and finds other 'rival queen' cells and kills
them jaws? Sting?
- Mating flight - when queen 7-10 days old leaves hive and all drones follow her
and 1 (or up to 7?) mate with her.
2) Drones - male (1000)
- Life span 4-5 weeks
- only job to mate with Queen.( most never get the opportunity)
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-
mating flight( when all drones leave hive and follow queen)
Larger eyes and longer antennae to help find Queen on mating flight
After mating flight they die (no longer fed by workers at end of summer and
chucked out of hive)
3) Workers – female (thousands)
- life span 4-6 weeks ( 3 weeks in hive/ 3 weeks food gathering)
- JOBS in hive:
- 1) Hive cleaning. Clean cells ready for eggs.
- 2) Keeping hives temperature right by fanning wings and water collection. Like
air conditioning. Needs to be right temp for larvae and so wax doesn't melt.
- 3) Feeding bee grubs, feeding royal jelly and bee bread. Feeding Queen and
drones
- 4) Making wax cells. The bee hive/nest is made of comb which is made up of
wax cells. Cells are hexagon shape. Worker gets wax from wax gland and
uses jaw to chew and shape it (think ear wax!). The wax cells are where eggs
laid/ protect larvae and store honey.
- 5) Making honey - use collected nectar, water evaporated to stop fermentation
and honey stored in wax cells with wax capping.
- 6) defend hive- guarding entrance
- 7) mending hive with propolis from tree resin
- JOBS outside hive (up to 40 trips a day)
- Foraging /food gathering from flowers and blossom, which are brightly
coloured / scented / shaped to attract the bee.
- Bees eat 1) pollen (protein & fat) (a yellow powder which is the male cells
produced by flowers/ blossom. This is collected in pollen sacks on hind legs
and gets stuck on bees hairy legs. The pollen is transferred by bees to other
flowers as they are foraging. This is pollination, when the pollen joins with the
female cells…the ovule
- 2) NECTAR - sweet liquid provides carbs/sugar. Uses proboscis to suck up
nectar into abdomen.
-
In the end they work themselves to death!
-
WHY? Spend all their lives accumulating vast stores of honey and pollen to be
used by colony to raise future generations in coming spring.
BEE COMMUNICATION
Bees compete with other insects for nectar and pollen. Need efficient way of telling each
other where good sources of it are. How? 1) Bee dancing message -wags body to show
direction and distance from hive
FOOD SHARING
Social activity: Workers feed from honey in cells and feed each other.
SWARMING
When the Bee colony needs to reproduce (produce another hive). In May/June when
colony large enough, workers produce new queen by feeding selected larvae royal jelly.
New queen emerges so old Queen leaves with lots of workers. Worker bees= scouts. Go
and find new site. Dance figure of 8 to show new site. There builds comb to raise larvae.
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Q: who goes? New queen fly away?
BEE COLONY- medium sized. 42,000
Organised society of social insects: Not group of individuals living in the same place,
acting independently, bees can't live on their own. Individual cannot exist apart from the
colony and prepared to sacrifice its life to defend it. Live together and share the work.
There is division of labour for workers, all dependent on each other for survival. Need co
operation.
Wonders of nature: A miniature economy, dependent on harvesting the resources of the
environment.
Task forces of workers depend on age/ ability to do the job, reproduction, defence,
regulating internal environment. Youngest clean cells, ready for egg. Next feed larvae.
Then milk gland stops. Build comb. Wax gland stops .etc. Defence, fanning. Older bee’s
tips of wings worn so no longer fly.
To support life in colony need: 1) nectar, pollen = bee’s food
2) water= cooling nest/ diluting honey to feed to larvae.
3) resin- fills holes in hive/ strengthen nest/ protection against
micro organisms.
HONEY COMB
Made up of same size, hexagonal wax cells, side by side. Need a secure cavity to build
comb.
Humans use wax for candles, polishes and craftwork
BEE KEEPING
Earliest domestication of animals. Provide essential commodities - light from beeswax
and alcohol from honey
In Britain most beehives are in the city. Urban landscape more trees and flowers than
modern countryside.
Traditional: in straw, rushes (Europe) bark/wood hung in trees (Africa), pottery (Egypt)
Modern: factory made hives
NB Farmers have bees on their land, not for honey but the benefit to crops. Crops flower
and bees spread pollen and help plants reproduce.
HONEY
Each flower - nectar with individual flavour. Some honey blended from diff. types. Honey
with more than 19% water will ferment. Most nectars= 50-90% water Bees choose nectar
with high sugar content. Bees evaporate water in nectar until 17% then it’s sealed in wax
cells. Honey = super saturated sugar solution. Ice water contains too much
sugar. Sugar out of solution= crystallisation
NB. Honey has antibiotic properties. Used for wound dressing since ancient Egyptians &
Romans.
AT SURREY DOCKS FARM
Bee Room - observation hive, honey extractor.
HARVESTING THE HONEY
Combs removed from hive. Bees removed. (blowing or forced to escape)
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Uncapping- wax over each cell removed with a knife
Extraction- honey spun out of cells
Straining - remove particles of wax
Settling- removes air in honey. Left clear, ready for bottling.
SEASONS
SPRING: Queen starts to lay eggs.
Colony grows 70,000. If bigger, workers make a new queen.
SUMMER: end the food stores are full. How bee keepers know how much honey to
leave bees for winter?
AUTUMN: a lot of bees die off. Survive on food store.
WINTER: about 20,000 bees. Hibernate until flowers come out again.
Surrey Docks City Farm
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