If you love honey, here are a few facts about bees you should be aware of. Honey has long been considered one of nature’s wonders and has been enjoyed for millennia; even King Tut’s tomb contained edible honey!
Bees are unique among insects in that they produce food for consumption by humans in significant amounts, as well as producing propolis, an all-natural sealant used to seal wounds.
1. They have five eyes
Honey bees’ five eyes are more than just an amusing fact – they are essential for their survival. Their vision helps power their superhuman foraging abilities which allow them to collect nectar from millions of flowers at the same time, and boast one of the fastest color vision rates among animals (five times faster than humans!).
Honeybees use two large compound eyes on either side of their heads made up of thousands of small lenses to gain an expansive view of their environment, which allows them to perceive colors, movement and even polarized light. Meanwhile, three eyes on top known as ocelli consisting of single lenses arranged triangulally allow honey bees to detect ultraviolet light as well as patterns not visible to human beings.
Bees possess eyeballs covered with an exclusive layer of hairs that serve to keep their lens clean, which is especially crucial since bees must travel through millions of flowers to collect all the resources required for feeding their hive. Their sense of smell is also highly developed – bees can detect up to 170 different odors that they use to identify various flower species.
One of the most fascinating honey bee facts is that worker bees can carry up to 30% of their body weight in pollen! This feat is made possible due to clever bee design; pollen is held above their eyes using gaps between lenses, then removed when grooming themselves by their forelegs when grooming themselves; from there it can either be placed back into its own hive or transferred by air travel to another bee in its flight path.
Bees possess incredible eyesight that allows them to track the sun throughout the day and remember its exact position even on cloudy days, providing navigation skills necessary for returning home after flying long distances from their hives. Furthermore, bees can detect wind direction by how it moves flower petals.
2. They have four wings
Honey bees may be small creatures, but their wings allow them to fly at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour. Their four wings are organized in two pairs attached to their thorax for locomotion; within this region are six legs with powerful flight muscles that enable flight.
Honey bees resemble all insects in that their body comprises three sections, the head, thorax and abdomen. Their heads feature large compound eyes with sensitive antennae as well as strong mouthparts equipped with proboscis tubes (an appendage used to absorb liquids).
Honey bees contain numerous odor receptors in their noses and antennae to detect different flavors, aromas and textures. Researchers have even shown that honey bees can tell the difference between smelling bread versus mango simply by scent alone!
Bees flap their wings to generate lift while flying, beating their wings at 220-250 times per second to generate thrust that propels their bodies through the air and forward. For optimal lift production, each wing moves at different angles during upstroke and downstroke movements for optimal lift production – creating a sort of flap-and-pulse motion.
Honey bees stand out among other insects because their wings can be used while remaining stationary, providing air movement through their hive, temperature regulation and dispersal of pheromones. Furthermore, they use them to evaporate nectar that they convert to honey before capping it with wax comb.
Scientists once believed that bees should not be able to fly because their wings are too small to generate sufficient lift, but this was inaccurate! Instead, the issue lay in using aerodynamic equations designed for airplane flight without considering how bee wings move – in particular French entomologists Antoine Magnan and Andre Sainte-Lague were mystified about how these creatures could fly until they realized the intricate pattern behind bee’s flapped wings moves – an insight which helped explain their flight potential.
3. They have a waggle dance
When asked to describe bees, most people think of honey and stings; but press further and they might mention the waggle dance, an important way for bees to communicate among themselves about where to find food and water sources.
After discovering an adequate food source, foragers return to the hive and perform a “waggle dance.” A bee’s waggle dance is like a miniature version of their flight from source to hive: complete with figure eight patterns and sudden, rapid wing vibrations known as waggle runs (a “waggle run”). This dance shows other foragers two pieces of information: direction of food patch as well as distance from hive; this information can be encoded via duration of dance which indicates greater distance.
Waggle dances provide information about how abundant the food source is. For instance, short circular and slow waggle movements signal poor quality sources; complex dance movements by bees indicate higher-grade food sources.
When searching for nectar sources that offer abundant nourishment, foragers will dance a dance of long circles and fast waggles as an indicator that this food source offers ample nutrition. They signal other foragers of its value by performing this dance ritual.
Bees must carefully consider their dancing angles if they wish to communicate as much information in an efficient manner, in the shortest amount of time. When considering their movements they must take several factors into account including wind direction which might influence how far away food sources may be and whether more energy must be expended than usual in reaching them.
Scientists who studied bee waggle dance language found it to be quite sophisticated. When comparing trained bees versus untaught foragers, inexperienced foragers could locate flower patches much quicker after learning how to dance from their mentors – suggesting it serves as a kind of socially learned communication system akin to songbird and human languages.
4. They have a beehive
Beehives can often be found near farm fields, open spaces or backyards – tall vertical structures reminiscent of giant honeycombs that house bees for shelter, protection and food production all at the same time. Bees use beehives as homes, workplaces and fortresses in one convenient structure.
Honeycombs form the core of any hive. Honeycombs consist of sheets of wax cells connected by hundreds of tiny chambers connected by hexagon-shaped walls containing beeswax secreted from glands on worker bee abdomens; each cell in turn requires less beeswax and energy than its neighbouring cells due to sharing.
These cells serve several purposes in the hive; nectar, pollen and honey storage; raising brood; rearing queens; as well as acting as its memory bank – bees attach bits of pollen to each cell’s edges so when worker bees encounter that specific piece again later they can quickly find their way back home to the hive.
Bees feed themselves and their colonies through eating and working hard. To produce honey, bees visit flowers and siphon nectar through their proboscis into a special sac inside their throat before mixing this nectar with enzymes present in saliva before storing it into their hive – one worker bee can store up to half a pound in her lifetime!
Once a hive is full, workers begin constructing queen cells – visually similar to regular comb but set aside specifically to rear the next queen. Once she is ready, workers send her on mating flights – mysterious journeys that we don’t fully comprehend; she flies up to 100 feet above ground at times in search of certain locations that she agrees upon with her colony members.
As winter sets in, bees become less active. Their hive forms an outer cover akin to our roofs that serves to protect and insulate them; when too cold for foraging trips they huddle together together eating honey while producing heat in order to remain warm.