What many people do not realize is that honey bees play a fairly important role in the human food process. By this we do not specifically mean making honey, but the pollination of flowers and plants. This is because they maintain the plant and flower species.
General information
Latin name: Apidea or also Apis
Kind: Insects and especially the membrane wings
Type: herbivores
What are they for: Bees are actually spread all over the world, as long as there are flowering plants. However, they do not occur in Antarctica
How old can they get: Depending on the bee species, they can live for several weeks to several months.
Nutrition
The food of (honey) bees consists only of nectar and pollen. Bees cannot survive without nectar. Nectar is a sugary liquid obtained from the nectar glands of certain plant species. This nectar is eventually processed into honey by the showers. To maintain a bee colony you need 35 to 50 kilograms of pollen per year. You can see the honey they produce as the fuel part of the bee food and the pollen as the building material part.
Characteristics of the body
The bee’s body actually consists of three parts: the head, the thorax and the abdomen. A bee has small thin hairs on its body, with which it can retain its heat, but at the same time it also serves to obtain pollen. When they move from flower to flower, the pollen sticks to the tiny hairs. The pollen also sticks to the thin wings they have. The bee’s head consists mainly of two antennae on either side and 2 larger eyes and 3 small single eyes located in the center of the top of the head. These eyes are much smaller and are not always easy to see due to the fairly long hair. The two large eyes fulfill the most important visual function, while the 3 small eyes can only perceive gross light shifts. Within the bee species there are three manifestations (read: difference in appearance and in role): the males, the female worker bees and the queen (also called nut).
Reproduction
A hive is home to between 20,000 and 70,000 bees, only one of which is the queen. She is also the only one to lay eggs. per day she lays 1500 to 3000 eggs. The honey bee is born in an egg that the queen has inserted into one of the cells in the bee comb. The cell is then provided with food and then closed with beeswax. The cells in which the males grow are larger than those in which the workers develop, because the males have a broader head due to their large eyes.
Living habits
In a bee group the roles are well divided, each bee does its own tasks. A male bee is called a drone. The male’s only role is to fertilize the queen. The female bees, except for the queen, are worker bees that do not lay eggs. The worker bees have various tasks, such as creating the honey cells in the hive, keeping watch and also collecting the honey. When one bee has found a place where pollen can be obtained, the bee makes special movements (or a dance) that tells the other bees to go there to get pollen.