Bee
The honey bee colony
A typical honey bee colony is made up of one queen, tens of thousands
of workers, and a few hundred drones. The queen is the female honey
Three bee that lays eggs. The workers are the unmated female offspring of
kinds of the queen. The drones are the male offspring.
honey
Picture
bees Honey bees live in hives. The hive is a storage space, such as a hollow
tree or a box, which contains a honeycomb. The honeycomb is a mass
of six-sided compartments called cells. Worker bees build the honeycomb of wax
produced by their bodies. They also collect a sticky substance called propolis, or bee
glue, from certain kinds of trees. They use it to repair cracks in the hive.
The honeycomb is used to raise young bees and to store food. The queen bee lays one egg
in each cell in part of the honeycomb. In general, the cells containing the eggs and
developing bees are in the center of the hive. This area is called the brood nest. The bees
store pollen and honey in cells above and around the brood nest. The same cells may be
used for different purposes. During spring and summer, many cells are used to raise
young bees. In fall, brood production stops, and more cells are available for storing honey
through the winter.
The contents of the hive are a prized source of food for many animals, including bees
from other colonies. Several workers always guard the entrance to the hive. The bees in
each hive have their own special odor. The guard bees can detect bees from other hives
by their smell. The guard bees attack strangers, whether they are bees from outside the
colony, bears, or human beings. When the threat to the hive is great, such as a bear that
jars the hive, the guard bees give off a special pheromone (chemical substance). The
scent of this pheromone, which smells like bananas, alerts other bees in the hive to come
to the aid of the guards.
Bee is an insect that lives in almost every part of the world except near the North and
South poles. Bees are one of the most useful of all insects. They produce honey, which
people use as food; and beeswax, which is used in such products as adhesives, candles,
and cosmetics. There are about 20,000 species (kinds) of bees. Only the kinds known as
honey bees make honey and wax in large enough amounts to be used by people.
Flowers provide food for bees. The bees collect tiny grains of pollen and a sweet liquid
called nectar from the blossoms they visit. They make honey from the nectar, and use
both honey and pollen as food. During their food-gathering flights, bees spread pollen
from one flower to another, thus pollinating (fertilizing) the plants they visit. This
enables the plants to reproduce. Numerous wild plants and such important food crops as
fruits and vegetables depend on bees for fertilization.
Bees probably developed from wasplike ancestors that first got their food by eating other
insects. These creatures gradually switched to flowers as their food source. In time, bees
became completely dependent on flowers for food. The flowers, in turn, benefited from
the bees. Scientists believe that over the years, bees helped create the wide variety of
flowers in the world today by spreading pollen among various plants.
Like most insects, bees have three pairs of legs and four wings. They also have a special
stomach, called a honey stomach, in which they carry nectar. All female bees have a
sting, which they use for self-defense.
Bees can be grouped into two general categories. Most are solitary bees. That is, they live
alone. Honey bees and bumble bees are examples of social bees that live and work
together in large groups, or colonies.
The body of the honey bee
The honey bee, like all insects, has a body that is divided into three
sections: the head, the thorax (chest), and the abdomen. The insect's
honey stomach, in which it carries nectar, is in the abdomen. The bee's
Head
body is thickly covered with fine structures called hairs. Bee hair is not
and
true hair, which grows only on mammals, but it resembles true hair.
body of
When a bee travels from flower to flower, grains of pollen stick to
a
worker
these hairs. Honey bees range in color from black to shades of light
Picture
bee
brown. Drones are slightly larger than workers, and queens are longer
than both workers and drones.
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Eyes. A bee has five eyes—three small ones that form a triangle on top of its head, and a
large compound eye on each side of its head. Each compound eye has thousands of lenses
crowded closely together. Bees cannot focus their eyes because they have no pupils.
Honey bees were the first insects known to be able to distinguish colors. Bees have three
kinds of color-sensitive cells in their eyes. These visual cells are especially sensitive to
blue, yellow, and ultraviolet rays, which humans cannot see. However, bees cannot
distinguish red. To them it blends in with green. In addition to color, bees can distinguish
different geometrical patterns, such as those of different kinds of flowers.
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Antennae are slender, jointed feelers attached to the front of the bee's head. They have
tiny sense organs that provide a means of smelling. Tiny hairs on the antennae probably
serve as organs of touch.
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Mouth. The bee uses its tongue to suck water, nectar, and honey into its mouth. The
tongue is a flexible tube on the outside of the bee's head. It can be shortened, lengthened,
and moved in all directions. On the sides of the tongue are two jaws. The bee uses its
jaws as tools to grasp wax and pollen.
Strong muscles are attached to the inside walls of the mouth. A bee sucks nectar up its
tongue, through its mouth, and into its honey stomach. It can also reverse this process and
bring food from its stomach out through its mouth. In this way, workers put nectar into
wax cells or give it to other bees.
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Wings. A bee has two thin wings on each side of its thorax. The two front wings are
larger than the hind wings. When the bee flies, the front wings and the smaller hind wings
become fastened together by a row of tiny hooks along the edge of the front wings.
The wings can move up and down, and forward and backward. A bee can fly forward,
sideways, or backward, and can hover in one place in the air.
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Legs. A bee has three legs on each side of its thorax. Each leg has five main joints, plus
tiny segments that make up the foot. The worker bee uses its legs for walking, for
brushing pollen off its body, and for handling wax. It carries pollen and propolis on its
hind legs.
Each front leg has a notched structure called the antenna cleaner. The bee uses it to clean
dirt from its antennae. On the outside of each of the hind legs of worker bees is a smooth
area surrounded by long, curved hairs. This area, called the pollen basket, is used to carry
pollen. Hairs on the inside of the hind legs help load pollen into the pollen basket. When
the worker returns to the hive, it places its hind legs down into a cell and kicks off the
pollen. Another worker uses its head to flatten out the pollen on the bottom of the cell.
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Sting. Most bees depend on their stingers, or stings, as their only means of defending
their home and their lives. Glands attached to the sting produce a venom (poison) made
up of complex chemical substances.
The sting of a worker bee is straight, with barbs (hooks) on it. When the bee thrusts the
sting into flesh, the barbs hold tight, and the stinger pulls out of the bee's body. But
muscles inside the sting keep working and force it deep into the wound. At the same time,
muscles pump more poison down the sting. A worker bee dies soon after losing its sting.
The queen bee has a smooth, curved sting that she uses only to kill other queens. Queens
do not lose their stings as do workers. Drones have no stings.
A bee sting causes sudden pain, and the poison produces continued pain and swelling. A
person stung by a bee should scrape the stinger off immediately, being careful not to
pinch or squeeze it. This action reduces the amount of poison that enters the wound.
Some people are so sensitive to bee stings that they may die from only one sting unless a
doctor treats them quickly.
During the 1970's, American scientists became concerned that swarms of vicious South
American "killer bees" might spread to the United States. If their hive is disturbed, these
bees attack anything that moves. They attack in large numbers, and their stings have
killed people and animals. These bees developed in Brazil in the late 1950's and early
1960's. A researcher had imported aggressive African honey bees that produce large
amounts of honey. Some of the colonies escaped, and some of their queens mated with
local drones. The resulting hybrids have spread rapidly throughout much of South
America, Central America, and Mexico.
Swarms of hybrid bees reached Texas in 1990. By the mid-1990's, swarms of these bees
had been sighted in several Southwestern States. They are expected to have a serious
impact on U.S. beekeeping. Scientists are working to reduce the impact through control
of wild populations and management of domestic colonies.
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Regulating body temperature. In order to fly, honey bees must maintain their flight
muscles at a temperature of at least 86 °F (30 °C). When honey bees are in flight, the heat
from the energy they use up is usually enough to keep their flight muscles warm. When
honey bees are not flying, they rapidly shiver their wings to stay warm.
Unlike most other insects, honey bees do not hibernate during the winter. Instead, they
form a dense cluster in the hive. The clustered bees keep warm by shivering and by
crowding together to seal off escaping heat.
Honey bees can also withstand extreme heat inside the hive. In a hot hive, bees crowd
less closely together, creating air channels between them. They also gather water and
sprinkle it in the hive. As the water evaporates, it cools the hive.
Life of the honey bee
From egg to adult. Bees develop from eggs laid by the queen. During
mating, the drone places semen (fertilizing fluid) inside the queen's
body. The semen contains sperm (male sex cells). The queen stores the
Stages
sperm in a sac in her abdomen. If the queen releases sperm onto an
in the
egg, the egg hatches into a worker. If she does not release sperm, it
life of a
develops into a drone.
Picture
bee
Honey bee eggs are pearly white and about as big as the head of a pin. A bee starts to
develop as soon as the queen lays the egg. After three days, a tiny wormlike larva crawls
out of the egg. The workers place larval food, called royal jelly, in the bottom of each cell
in the brood nest. Royal jelly is a creamy substance, rich in vitamins and proteins. It is
formed by glands in the head of young worker bees. When the larva is three days old, the
workers begin feeding it a mixture of honey and pollen called beebread.
The workers build a wax cap over the cell about five days after the larva hatches. A great
change then takes place. The wormlike larva becomes a pupa. Then the pupa develops
into an adult. The adult worker bee bites its way out of the cell about 21 days after the
egg is laid. Drones take about 24 days to develop. See Larva; Pupa.
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Growth of the queen. A colony needs a new queen if the old queen disappears or
becomes feeble. A new queen is also needed if the old queen and part of the colony
decide to leave and build a new hive.
In some unknown way, the workers select a few larvae to become queens. They feed
these larvae only royal jelly. At the same time, other workers build special cells for the
queens to grow in. A queen cell looks like half a peanut shell hanging from the
honeycomb. About 51/2 days after hatching, the queen larva becomes a pupa. The queen
crawls out of the cell about 16 days after the egg is laid. Scientists believe bees may add a
special substance to the queen's royal jelly to make her grow faster and have a different
appearance from the workers.
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Mating flight. When the young queen emerges from her special cell, the bees in the
colony pay little attention to her. She eats honey and gains strength. If two queens hatch
at the same time, they fight until one stings the other to death. The old queen may leave
the colony, or she may fight with the young queen. After the young queen has killed her
rivals, she flies from the hive. She may mate with one or sometimes several drones. The
young queen then returns to the hive and begins to lay eggs two or three days later. After
mating, the queen can lay eggs for the rest of her life. A queen may live as long as five
years and produce up to a million eggs during her lifetime.
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Swarming. When a colony becomes overcrowded, the queen's egg-laying power
diminishes. The workers then build cells for new queens. In these cells, the old queen
deposits eggs. After these eggs develop into pupae, the workers cover the cells with wax.
A few days after the new queen cells are covered over with wax, many of the workers
and the old queen leave the hive as a swarm. Their flight to form a new colony is called
swarming. Some workers stay behind in the hive and care for the larvae and the new
queen.
The swarm clusters around a branch or a post after leaving the hive. Workers called
scouts then seek out a location for the new colony. Each scout returns to the swarm and
uses a special "dance" to indicate the distance and direction of the site it has found to the
other scouts. The scouts then investigate one another's sites. At a signal, the entire swarm
travels to whichever site seems best. "Streaker" bees who know where the hive is lead the
way. The queen follows.
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Finding food. Flowers provide bees with the pollen and nectar they
use as food. Pollen is the young bees' source of important fats,
proteins, vitamins, and minerals. The sugar in nectar is mainly a source
of energy.
Locating
Scout bees search for food for the hive. When the scouts find food,
Picture
food
they return to the hive and use a dance to tell the other bees where the
food is in relation to the sun. The dance is similar to the one scout bees use to indicate the
location of a new hive.
If the food is located toward the sun, the scout makes a series of rapid runs in a modified
figure-8 pattern up the honeycomb. If the food is located 30° to the right of the sun, the
scout makes a series of runs 30° to the right of an imaginary vertical line on the
honeycomb. The dance also indicates the distance of the food. The faster the scout
dances, the closer the food.
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Video
How a
bee
makes
honey
Making honey. Flowers often have special glands, called nectaries,
that produce nectar. Worker honey bees suck up nectar from the
flowers with their long tongues and store it in their honey stomachs. In
the stomach, a process called inversion breaks down the sugar in the
nectar into two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. When the worker
bee returns to the hive, it regurgitates (spits up) the nectar back
through its mouth. It either gives the nectar to other bees or puts it in
an empty cell in the hive. As the water in the nectar evaporates, the
nectar changes into honey.
Workers then put wax caps on the honey-filled cells. Beekeepers collect honey from the
combs. But they leave enough in the hive to feed the bees. See Honey.
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Making wax. Special wax-producing glands develop in the abdomens of workers who
are about 10 days old. The workers eat large amounts of honey, and the glands convert
the sugar in the honey to wax. The wax oozes through small pores (holes) in the body and
forms tiny white flakes on the outside of the abdomen. A bee usually makes eight flakes
at a time. The bee picks them off its abdomen with its legs and moves them up to its jaws.
After chewing the wax, the bee puts the wax on the part of the honeycomb that it is
building. The bee produces beeswax only when it needs the wax to build a honeycomb.
In general, a worker makes wax from the 10th to 16th day of its life. See Beeswax.
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Division of labor. Laying eggs is the queen's only job. In the spring, the queen may lay
as many as 2,000 eggs a day—about one every 43 seconds.
The only function of drones is to mate with queens. Honey bee drones usually do not
mate with the queen of the hive in which they live. They may fly miles away to mate with
queens from other hives. Drones are present in the colony only during the summer. They
depend on workers to feed them because their tongues are not long enough to obtain
nectar. In the fall, when food becomes scarce, the workers stop feeding the drones and
drag them out of the hive to die.
Workers do not lay eggs and do not mate. They perform a variety of other jobs, however.
For the first three days of its adult life, a worker cleans the hive. It spends the next several
days feeding developing honey bees. Then the worker begins to produce wax and to build
honeycomb cells. After building the honeycombs, the worker stands guard at the hive
entrance and receives nectar collected by other bees. Finally, when a worker is about
three weeks old, it begins to hunt for food. It continues this job for the rest of its life.
During the busy summer months, a worker may live for only about six weeks. During the
less active months of fall and winter, a worker may live up to several months.
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Enemies. Bees have many enemies. Bears, Argentine ants, and other animals may
destroy the hive in their search for honey. Skunks and dragonflies often eat bees. The
wax moth may ruin a weak colony by eating the wax in the honeycomb. Worker bees try
to protect the colony by stinging invaders to death, but they do not always succeed. An
insect called the bee assassin makes a specialty of feeding on bees that it catches in
flowers. In much of the world, tiny parasites called honey bee mites attack developing
honey bees. These mites have destroyed thousands of hives in Asia, Europe, and North
and South America.
Both young and adult bees sometimes fall victim to such diseases as European foulbrood
and American foulbrood. These diseases may turn the bees into a gummy, lifeless mass.
Human activities also harm bees. Insecticides meant to kill other insects kill thousands of
bees each year. Weed sprays take away an important source of bee food by killing weeds
and their flowers.
Beekeeping
The people of the Stone Age, thousands of years ago, ate honey that they stole from the
hives of wild bees. Some of these people learned to make crude hives for the bees, so the
honey would be near their homes. They probably made these first beehives out of hollow
logs, a pot placed on its side, or a basket turned upside down. Later, farmers in Europe
built straw skeps that looked like upside-down baskets. Colonists probably took honey
bees with them from England to Virginia in 1622. By the end of the 1700's, honey bees
were fairly common throughout the eastern states. The settlers took honey bees with them
as they moved west.
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As an industry, beekeeping is most highly developed in many countries. Farmers who
keep hives of bees can sell the honey and beeswax. The bees also aid farmers by
pollinating many crops. Commercial beekeeping, also called apiculture, began in the
mid-1800's after the invention of modern hives.
Today, beekeepers in the United States tend hives that produce about 200 million pounds
(90 million kilograms) of honey every year. Bakers buy large amounts of honey to use in
crackers, cookies, and other baked goods. The rest is packaged in small containers and
sold for cooking and as a sweet spread.
About 4 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms) of beeswax is produced and sold in the
United States every year. Beeswax is used in candles, lipsticks, polishes, waterproofing
compounds, and other products.
Most beekeepers provide standard hives for their bees. The hives
are made up of several removable drawerlike supers (sections).
The bees build their honeycombs inside the supers on movable
frames that hang 3/8 inch (10 millimeters) apart. Bees can pass
through this bee space to all parts of the hive, and the beekeeper
Standard hive can move the frames about. Generally, each super holds 10
Picture
combs or frames, and each comb contains about 8,000 cells.
Some beekeepers keep from 40 to 75 hives in one location. If they have more colonies,
they use out-apiaries (locations) several miles or kilometers apart. The out-apiaries must
be separated so that there are enough plants nearby to supply nectar. A colony can gather
up to 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) of nectar in a day.
Beekeepers must learn to handle their bees carefully so the bees will not sting them.
Slow, deliberate movements do not disturb bees as much as quick movements.
Beekeepers usually wear veils of wire screen or cloth to protect their faces. They tie their
clothing at the wrists and ankles. Most beekeepers wear gloves with fingers and thumbs
cut off to allow more delicate handling. A few beekeepers do not wear gloves.
Some beekeepers in the southern United States sell packages containing workers and a
queen to honey producers. They usually ship 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kilograms) of bees
in wire-screen packages. Other beekeepers rent hives of bees. Farmers place the hives in
or near fields, and the bees pollinate the crops.
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As a hobby. Many people are more interested in studying bees and their habits than in
gathering honey. They often keep bees in a glass-walled hive, where they can watch
workers communicate by dancing, and see the queen laying eggs while workers care for
the young.
Bees can be kept in both city and farm areas. People keep hives in backyards or on
rooftops. Honey bees are easy to handle, and their honey may be eaten or sold. A
beginner must buy bees either as a package of workers and a queen, or as a complete
hive. A beginner should have the colony inspected by the state bee inspector to make sure
it is free of disease.
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Scientific classification. Bees belong to the order Hymenoptera, or membrane-winged
insects. They make up the superfamily Apoidea. The order Hymenoptera also includes
ants and wasps. Honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees are members of the family
Apidae. The honey bee is Apis mellifera. Leafcutting bees and mason bees belong to the
family Megachilidae. Carpenter bees and cuckoo bees are in the family Anthophoridae.
Mining bees belong to the family Andrenidae.
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