Fun facts about bees and honey

Honey Bee

There are three types of bees in the hive – Queen, Worker and Drone.

The queen may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day during her 3 or 4 year lifetime. This daily egg production may equal her own weight. She is constantly fed and groomed by attendant worker bees.

Honey bees fly at 15 miles per hour.

Honeybees are the only insect that produce food for humans.

Honeybees will usually travel approximately 3 miles from their hive.

Honeybees are the only bees that die after they sting.

Honeybees never sleep!

Honey

Honey is 80% sugars and 20% water.

Tiny amounts of pollen found in locally-grown raw honey work over time to desensitize the body to a particular allergen--not unlike the way traditional allergy shots work.

To make one pound of honey, the bees in the colony must visit 2 million flowers, fly over 55,000 miles and will be the lifetime work of approximately 768 bees.

A single honeybee will only produce approximately 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

A single honey bee will visit 50-100 flowers on a single trip out of the hive.

Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.

A typical beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year.

Honey never spoils.

Flowers and other blossoming plants have nectarines that produce sugary nectar. Worker bees suck up the nectar and water and store it in a special honey stomach. When the stomach is full the bee returns to the hive and puts the nectar in an empty honeycomb. Natural chemicals from the bee's head glands and the evaporation of the water from the nectar change the nectar into honey.

Out of 20,000 species of bees, only 4 make honey.

A populous colony may contain 40,000 to 60,000 bees during the late spring or early summer.

Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their central brood nest regardless of whether the outside temperature is 110 or -40 degrees.

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