KIDS CORNER

W H A T I S A H O N E Y B E E ?

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W H A T D O T H E Y D O ?

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F U N F A C T S

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H O N E Y F A C T S

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B E E S W A X F A C T S

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C O L O U R I N G I N

W H A T I S A H O N E Y B E E ?

Honeybees are insects :

They have three parts to their body - the head, thorax and abdomen - and six legs.

They have four wings, two large compound eyes and three smaller ocelli eyes in the centre of its head.

A honeybee’s sting is at the end of its abdomen, attached to its digestive track. It has jagged edges (barbed) which is why when it uses it, it is torn away from their insides and it dies.

W H A T D O T H E Y D O ?

There are three types of honeybees: Worker • Queen • Drone

A colony of honeybees can be up to 60,000 depending on the type of beehive you have.

Worker: The worker bees are all female. They are the smallest bees in a colony and makes up 90% of honeybees in a hive. They are all female. In the spring and summer they live for about 6 weeks and in the late autumn and winter they can live for about 5 months. The worker bee has various jobs to do throughout her life, which begin on the day she is born and she carries on until she dies. Below is a list of what they have to do.

Nurse bee: When a worker is born she immediately cleans out her cell to get it ready for the queen to lay an egg in it. She then has to look after the young bees in the hive. So she will feed the brood in all its stages, pupae, larvae and the drones, (male bees), when they are first born.

Undertaker: It is the job of the undertaker to clear out any dead bees, and bits of bodies and other such bits of rubbish left behind.

Architect: When a worker bee is old enough she produces wax from glands underneath her abdomen. She uses this wax to build out comb for the queen to lay eggs in, and for the pollen and nectar to be stored. She caps over the eggs once they have turned into larvae and the stores of honey in order to preserve it. They also repair any damaged comb and use propolis to fill in any gaps in the hive to stop draughts coming in and predators.

Fanning bee: The fanning bee uses her wings to control the temperature in the hive. She can cool it down (with the help of water) or warm it up. She also uses her wings to fan the stores of nectar, which reduces the water content and turns it into delicious honey. She can fan her wings at 240 times a second!

Cleaners: The cleaners groom the other workers in the hive and take the nectar, pollen and propolis from the flying bees when they return to the hive.

Guards: The last job a worker has before she becomes a flying bee is a guard. Stands and hovers at the entrance to the hive checking all the bees that come in, making sure no predators or robber bees enter the hive. When a worker is a guard her sting is at its strongest/most venomous!

Flying bee: The flying bees have four things to bring back to the hive.

water: Like us the honeybees need to drink water! They store it in a special part of their tummy called a ‘crop’ and then take it back to the hive where it’s used for air conditioning. They drop it around the edges of the frames in their hive and on the backs of the fanning bees who then beat their wings to circulate cool air around the hive. Clever girls!

Nectar: A honeybee has a very long straw like tongue and a special tummy, called a honey tummy. She sucks up the nectar from the base of a flower, stores it in her honey tummy and then takes it all back to her hive where she hands it over to one of the cleaners who stores it in the cells.

Pollen: Pollen is collected from the stamens in the centre of the flower. A honeybee has hairs on her back legs on to which she packs the pollen which then makes her look as if she is carrying baskets of pollen around. While she is doing this, pollen falls on to her head, back and wings and as she flys from flower to flower some of it falls off and this causes pollination which enables the flowers to reproduce.

Propolis: Propolis is a very sticky substance collected from the stickiest part of the trees and plants. They use their back legs in the same way as they do when collecting pollen but need help from the cleaners to remove it! They use propolis to block up any gaps in their hive to prevent draughts or predators coming and they also use it around the entrance to the hive and on the very edges of the frames. It has an antiseptic quality, which helps keep any nasty bacteria at bay helping to keep them healthy.

Queen: There can only be one queen in each colony. She is of course female and is larger than all the other bees but has smaller wings. She only leaves the hive three times in her life time. Once on an orientation flight, once to mate and once if she is forced out by the other honeybees and swarms. She may be the queen but it is the workers who decide her fate! When she swarms she takes half of the colony with her… all the flying bees! She can live for up to 4 or 5 years and it is her sole job to lay eggs. She lays about 2,000 eggs a day. The nature of a hive is determined by the queen. If she s a nice queen she the colony will be quiet. If she isn’t nice she will have fiesty, buzzy bees… if this happens the beekeeper will more than likely remove her from the colony and the workers will immediately start the job of producing another queen.

Drones: The drones are the male honeybees. They make up about 10% of the colony. They are larger than the workers, they have very big eyes and boxy shaped bodies. Their only job is to mate with the queen after which they die. Those that don’t mate with the queen go back to any hive they find on their journey home and pootle around eating honey for the rest of their lives. They live for about eight weeks. In the late summer they diminish in number until there are no drones left in the hive throughout the autumn and winter months.

FUN FACTS

Honeybees have been on this planet longer than the dinosaurs, about 100 million years.

Honeybees have a fantastic sense of smell! They use pheromones, (scents) to communicate with each other in the hive and when looking for flowers from which to collect the pollen, nectar a propolis.

Each colony of honeybees has between 50 and 60,000 honeybees.

They fly for up to five miles. Remember this next time you say you can’t be bothered to go out for a walk!

One bee would have to fly three times around the world – to make one pound of honey. This never happens as…

A honeybee makes 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime!

They fan their wings over 200 times a second.

A honeybee produces 8 tiny flakes of wax, not much larger than a nail clipping every 12 hours. Now go and have a look at a beeswax candle!

Honeybees are the only insect in the world that produces a food that humans eat.

A honeybee has two stomachs, one is for storing nectar when they collect it from the flowers. The other stomach has a place inside called a ‘crop’ where they keep the water intended for the hive.

To make a single jar of honey the honeybees will have visited about 2 million flowers.

Honeybees prefer to forage from the blossom on trees and shrubs rather than single wild flowers.

If a honeybee stings you she will die.

They have six legs, four wings and five eyes!

The queen will lay over 2,000 eggs a day

Drones don’t have a sting

The queen has a sting but only uses it on rival queens in her colony. It is not barbed (jagged) like the worker bees and therefore she won’t die when she uses it. She also uses it to guide the eggs into the centre of the cells when she is laying.

All the worker bees in a colony are female.

Sorry boys, no King bee in a colony!

A honeybee can fly as fast as 15 miles per hour

A honeybee visits 50 to 100 flowers on each collection trip

H O N E Y F A C T S

Honey lasts forever!

It has many medicinal qualities: It helps ease sore throats and coughs. It can assist with digestive disorders, skin problems and hay fever. 

It also has antiseptic properties and is still used in some hospitals to dress wounds and as a first aid treatment for burns and cuts.Honeybees have been producing honey for 100 million years or more.

Honey is the only food that has everything in it in order to sustain life, including water. 

In ancient Roman times honey was known as ‘liquid gold’ beause of it’s medicinal qualities and it was used to pay taxes with.

The colour of honey is determined by the source of nectar.

And finally a good beekeeper will only take what the honeybees don’t need for themselves to get through the winter. An effective colony of bees makes two to three times more honey than it needs to survive the winter. As a back up, beekeepers will feed bees sugar syrup by way of compensation. If they don’t need it, they won’t take it.

B E E S W A X F A C T S

Beeswax is a completely natural substance made by the honeybee.Honeybees use the sugar from the honey to convert into waxIt takes a honeybee 12 hours to produce 8 flakes of wax.

Honeybees have to eat 6 - 8 pounds of honey to make a 1 pound of wax.

Beeswax is used in hair and beauty products.

Like propolis and honey, beeswax has antibacterial qualities which helps keeps things in the hive clean and healthy.

A candle made of pure beeswax burns brighter, is cleaner and smells delicious. It has the natural scent of the honey and flower nectar that’s found in the honeycomb.

It’s waterproof and moisturising.

Like honey, beeswax never goes off!

C O L O U R I N G I N

Here are a couple of pictures which you can download and use for colouring in. I’d LOVE to see your colouring so please do email me a copy, together with your name and age, to meriet@mdthequeenbee.co.uk and I will definitely put them on my monthly blog!

If this page has inspired you and/or your parents/guardians or teachers please do go to my Contact page and get in touch. There’s nothing I’d like more than to come to your school, library, brownies and scouts and talk to you about the honeybees!

If you want to know more about the honeybees why not go to Shop Book and purchase a copy. You can leave a message if you would like me to dedicate the book to someone and sign it.

PLEASE NOTE • All the images on this page are the sole copyright of Tegan Sharrard @ https://www.tegan-art.co.uk/