Ever heard the term “Busy as a bee?” The honeybee literally works it's self to death every summer

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live?" ~ Albert Einstein 

Have you ever heard the term “Busy as a bee?”  The honeybee literally works it's self to death every summer during a 6 week life cycle,  9 month life cycle during chillier seasons.  A queen can live up to 5 years while the drone is used for mating and then kicked out of the hive.

The honey bee's wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second, thus making their famous, distinctive buzz.

A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour. A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 2.20 pounds of honey.  I suppose that's why it's pricey.

A honey bee's sense of smell is so precise that they can differentiate hundreds of floral varieties and tell whether a flower carried pollen or nectar. When the workers return to the hive they communicate with one another by dancing providing distance and direction to pollen and nectar resources. Interesting tidbit- a bee that has consumed cocaine becomes a liar, exaggerating facts and communicating incorrect info to the hive.

Honey Bees are a super pollinator of fruit and vegetables grown for human consumption and their population is disappearing!  Entomologists are calling this anomaly CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder but they have yet to name other causes.  Bees play an important role in our ecosystem - 80% of our crops are pollinated by honey bees - that's about $20 billion worth of crops a year. Save the bee!

WE MAKE IT HERE -  Alternatives to dissection, posters, life history, botany and zoology models for science students of all ages.

https://denoyer.com/collections/biology 

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Denoyer-Geppert Honey Bee Life History Chart   Large 36"x44" 

In addition to demonstrating the characteristic insect body plan, the large central figure of a worker bee is depicted gathering nectar from a flower and, in the process, pollinating it. A honeycomb being tended by workers reveals egg, larval and pupal stages, while the three castes of honeybees (worker, queen, and drone) are shown to scale for comparison. Large 36"x44" 

Funny story - in the late '70's I worked on the North side of Chicago on Clark street in Rogers Park.  I won't name names but my boss decided a bee hive would be a cool hobby and he installed a couple of hives above the dock door on the alley and the bees had freedom to come and go doing what bees do.  One of our neighbors was Affy Tapple.  They made delicious caramel apples in their Clark street factory and very quickly they were making caramel covered bees! I don't remember a swarm taking off and entering their shop every morning - it probably started out slow but once the bees knew about that spot their was no stopping them. Not sure how long it took for Mrs. Kastrup to realize they were our bees but I kind of remember her storming over giving him hell. She was cranky and out weighed him by 50 Lbs. and probably could have taken him.  Soon enough the hive was removed.  I wonder how much honey he got?  MCA