FUN FACT FRIDAY : CREATING A BUZZ ABOUT THE FLYING BEE.

THE FLYING BEE

This weeks Fun Facts Friday are all about the Flying Bee.  Last week we learned that in the height of the summer a honey bee only lives for about 6 weeks.  Five of those weeks she spends in the hive as a House Bee, working her way up to becoming a Flying Bee.  The Flying Bee is the one that brings in everything the colony needs in order to survive.  She is only a Flying Bee for one week and then she dies.

So what is she bringing in?

 1.     N E C T A R

The honeybee has two stomachs, her normal stomach and her honey-stomach. At the base of every flower, no matter how large or small, there is a bowl shape filled with nectar.  A honeybee has a long tongue, like a straw, and she sucks up the nectar into her honey-stomach.  She takes the nectar back to the hive and passes it on to one of the house bees who puts it into a cell to be fed to the brood or store for the winter.

2.     P O L L E N

Pollen is the dust that sits on top of the stamens of the flowers. The honeybee has six legs.  On her back legs she has pollen baskets.  She mixes the pollen from the top of the flowers with some of her saliva and turns it into a paste which she packs tightly into her pollen baskets and takes back to her hive.  While she flies from flower to flower she is spreading the pollen around.  This is called pollination.  Without pollination the flowers and blossoms on the trees cannot grow again next year.

Honeybees are the major pollinators of all insects.

3.     W A T E R

Honeybees need water too!  They store it in a special section in their stomachs called a crop.  They need it for controlling the temperature in the hive. (Last Friday’s fun facts told you about the fanning bee who uses the water and her wings to create an air conditioning system in the hive.)  She also needs it to mix with the pollen and the nectar to feed the brood.

4.     P R O P O L I S

Propolis is a glue-like substance the honeybee collects from the stickiest part of a plant or tree.  She uses her pollen baskets to take it back to the hive and mixes it with her saliva and beeswax and uses it to fill in any small gaps in her hive.  The larger gaps she fills with wax.  Propolis is also known to have healing properties for the honeybees.

There is one other amazing thing the honeybee does when she is a flying bee.  Some of them become Scout Bees.  The Scout Bees go out and find the best source of nectar and pollen then come back to the hive and perform a dance called The Waggle Dance.  The Waggle Dance tells the Flying Bees what direction to go in and how far they have to fly. They also are the bees who find the safest place for a swarm to settle when they are about to take off with their Queen.

 If you would like to win a signed copy of Betsie Valentine And The Honeybees.  Answer this simple question:

How many stomachs does a honeybee have? 

 Go to the Contact page on this website and tell me your answer, along with your name and age. If you are the winner I will contact you via email.

 Answers must be in by 7pm on Thursday 16th April

 G O O D   L U C K !