10 Fun Facts About Bees
Bees are an important part of our farm, because they’re essential to our ecosystem. Bees pollinate plants that produce one-third of the food we eat—and they’ve been declining in population due to climate change, loss of habitat, and pesticide use.
We feel strongly about having a positive impact on the environment, and we’re doing our part to help bee populations. Our organic farm provides our hives with organic flowers on which to feed, with no pesticides or chemicals to harm them.
Bees are amazing creatures—and here are some reasons why.
1. The honey bee is the only insect that creates food for humans.2. Bees beat their wings 11,400 times per minute! Hence their loud buzz.
3. To create 1 pound of honey, honeybees will fly more than 55,000 miles. They may visit up to 100 flowers—they only collect from flowers of the same type at a time—to collect a single load of nectar. The term “busy as a bee” is quite apt, as a hive of these prolific workers can produce up to 100 pounds of honey per year.
4. Do you get afraid when you see a bee? If so, they will know. Bees can sense the hormones humans give off when they’re fearful, and if they think their hive is threatened, they will attack.
6. Only female bees have stingers—males do not.
7. Bees communicate the location and distance of flower patches to their hives by dancing upon her return to the hive. She dances at the same angle of the flowers in relation to the sun, and the longer the dance, the farther they are away.
8. The hexagon structure of the honeycomb is the most efficient shape in the world. It allows bees to store as much honey as possible without any empty space. Bees seal each cell with beeswax to keep the honey clean and dry.
9. Bees heat and cool their hive to keep it between 93 and 95 degrees F. In winter, they swarm together to create heat from friction; in summer, they deposit water and then fan it with their wings to create evaporative cooling.
10. A single bee has five eyes, with tiny hairs on them to help them detect wind direction. They specialize in seeing patterns, which helps them find flowers and recognize each other.
