Bees

A honey bee egg is about the size of a grain of rice!

Basic Information

There are over 20,000 kinds of bees in the world — but only about 800 make honey, and just 8 of those make enough for us to collect!

Bees belong to the same family as ants and wasps, called Hymenoptera, which means “membrane wing” in Greek!

A group of bees living together is called a colony, and can contain up to 60,000 bees during summer months!

Honey bees have been making honey the same way for over 150 million years, since the time of dinosaurs!

Most bees only live for about 4–6 weeks during busy summer months, but queen bees can live for 2–5 years!

A single bee colony can visit up to 50,000 flowers in just one day!

Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica, where it’s too cold for them to survive!

The average worker bee weighs about 0.1 grams, which is lighter than a paper clip!

Male bees are called drones, females are workers, and the mother of the colony is the queen!

Physical Characteristics

Bees have five eyes — two large compound eyes and three small simple eyes called ocelli!

A bee’s brain is only about the size of a sesame seed, but it can perform complex calculations about flowers and navigation!

Bees have special stomachs just for storing nectar, called honey stomachs!

Bees have special pockets on their back legs called pollen baskets, where they store collected flower pollen!

Bees can recognize different flower shapes, and they can even tell the difference between circular and star-shaped patterns!

A bee’s tongue, called a proboscis, can be as long as their entire body when fully extended!

Bees have tiny hair-like sensors on their antennae that can detect flower scents from several miles away!

A worker bee has about 170 special scent receptors on its antennae, which help it find flowers and communicate with other bees!

Behavior & Intelligence

Bees do a special wiggling dance called the “waggle dance” to tell other bees where to find good flowers!

Bees can solve simple math problems and understand the concept of zero, making them one of the smartest insects!

Worker bees have different jobs as they age — young bees clean the hive, middle-aged bees feed larvae, and older bees collect pollen!

Bees can tell time and have excellent memories that help them remember which flowers provide the most nectar!

When bees find a good source of nectar, they share the exact location with their hivemates using dance movements!

Bees work together to control their hive temperature, fanning their wings to cool it down or huddling together to warm it up!

Guard bees protect the hive entrance and can recognize which bees belong to their colony by their scent!

Bees take short naps during the day, usually for about 30 seconds at a time!

Bees can learn new skills from other bees, like how to get nectar from different types of flowers!

Habitat & Survival

Wild bees make their homes in tree hollows, rock crevices, and even underground burrows!

Some bees are solitary and live alone, while others live in colonies with thousands of family members!

Bees can fly up to 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from their hive to find flowers, but they usually stay within 2 miles (3.22 kilometers)!

Different bee species are active at different times — some work at dawn, while others prefer afternoon sunshine!

Bees create hexagonal honeycomb cells because this shape uses the least amount of wax to hold the most honey!

Some bees seal their nests with leaves, while others use mud or tree resin!

Desert bees can survive in temperatures up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49°C)!

Some bees build nests in snail shells or inside hollow plant stems!

Life Cycle

It takes 21 days for a worker bee to develop from egg to adult, but queens only need 16 days!

A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs each day — that’s one egg every 43 seconds!

Baby bees (larvae) eat 1,300 meals per day during their growing period!

The type of food a baby bee eats determines whether it becomes a worker or a queen!

When a new queen bee is born, she makes a special “piping” sound to announce her arrival!

Worker bees feed royal jelly to larvae that will become queens — it’s like special baby food made from their glands!

Drone bees develop from unfertilized eggs, which means they only have a mother and no father!

A bee goes through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult!

Young worker bees eat about 100 meals a day of pollen and honey to help their bodies develop!

Diet & Feeding

A single bee must visit about 1,000 flowers to make one small teaspoon of honey!

Bees can taste sweet, sour, and bitter flavors with their feet and antennae!

A colony of bees must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make just one pound of honey!

Bees need to eat lots of pollen and nectar every day to get the energy they need to fly around.

Some bees are specialists and only collect pollen from one type of flower!

A bee’s favorite colors in flowers are purple, violet, and blue!