1. Smoke is used by beekeepers to keep bees calm. The beekeepers do this when they collect honey or relocate a hive.2. Honey feeds the young of bees and gives them food for the winter.
3. There are about 20,000 different species of bees in the world.
4. A bee home is called a colony.
5. Each colony has three types of bees, a queen bee, a worker bee and a drone.
6. The worker bees are female and they cannot reproduce. Worker bees clean the hive, collect pollen and nectar to feed the colony, and care for the baby bees.
7. The queen bee is also female, but only she is the only bee who reproduces. The queen’s only job is to lay eggs.8. Drones are male bees. The drone’s only job is to mate with the queen.
9. Bees store their venom in a sac attached to their stinger. Only female bees (worker bees) sting. The stinger, called an ovipositor, is part of the female bee’s reproductive design. A queen bee uses her ovipositor to lay eggs as well as sting. The worker bees, who are sterile, just sting.10. Bees see all colors except the color red. They also have a good sense of smell. These two senses help them find the flowers they need to collect pollen.
11. Pollen is a good food source for bees, and when the bees drop some of the pollen, they help with cross pollination. The relationship between the plant and the insect is called symbiosis.
12. Some types of bees die after they sting. Their stingers, which are attached to their abdomen, have little barbs or hooks on them. after they sting, the stinger stays in the victim, and when the bee tries to fly away, part of the abdomen is ripped off.
13. Bees are currently in danger and suffering from something called colony collapse disorder. This means the worker bees in a hive disappear. Without worker bees, the colony dies.
Some info from:
http://www.pestworldforkids.org/bees.html
The photos are mine.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 299th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Great bee info and the photos are pretty darned neat!
ReplyDeleteJoe want to keep bees but I'm afraid they will draw more bears. We have a world famous bee farmer and speaker on colony collapse here at Spikennard Farm.
ReplyDeleteExcellent info and pics.
ReplyDeleteAn informative T13, Anita. Great photos!
ReplyDeleteWow, really interesting. Our former neighbor used to keep bees and keeping them myself is on my bucket list.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.miaceleste.com/?p=393
So ironic that they can't see one of the common colors for flowers.
ReplyDeleteI am desperately allergic, there's an epipen in my handbag right now. How sad to know that it's a sister who could kill me with her venom!
ReplyDeleteI never knew about the drone and smoke. I thought smoke was used to drive bees away. Good to learn something new.
ReplyDeleteHazel
And without the bees, crops aren't pollinated.
ReplyDeleteYour photos are great! Sadly, it's rare that I see honeybees in our garden.
ReplyDeleteBoth my friends lost their hives this year. One had our local bee expert take a look and he believes it was due to pesticides from neighboring gardens. We were on the verge of keeping bees but opted out for several reasons, one being the vineyard across the road. They spray quite a bit and we felt we would be doomed before we ever started. Another factor was the bears. We would have needed an electric fence around the hives. It's an expensive hobby!