Honey Bee Garden Nursery Landscaping Guide
Honey Bee Collecting Pollen For Nutrition
By Rodger G Allenby
There are many intriguing facts about the honey bee that you
may not know. Bees provide healing and health-promoting benefits
for humans and have a plethora of virtues to share.
While the queen honey bee is busy laying eggs, the worker bees
are busy providing her with the nutritional source to do that.
That nutritional bi-product is a boon to humans as well. Here
are some more fascinating facts about honey bees that you may
not be aware of.
Bee Pollen Is Dense With Nutrients
Honeybees collect pollen for their own nutritional purposes because
bee pollen is incredibly dense in nutrients. Bee pollen provides
the honeybee with all of the nutrition it needs for growth and
development.
Bee pollen is approximately twenty five percent protein and very
low in fat and sodium. It contains many minerals and vitamins
including potassium, manganese, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron,
copper and the B vitamins.
The Structure Of The Honey Bee
Wild bees have been around for over 30 million years and are
the only insect that produces food eaten by humans. Honey bees
are environmentally friendly because they act as pollinators.
They are an insect with the scientific name of Apis mellifera.
They have two compound eyes, one on each side of the head, made
up of thousands of tiny lenses, three simple eyes on the top of
the head, two wings, a nectar pouch, a stomach and six legs. The
wings of the honeybee stroke 11,400 times per minute, which is
what makes their distinctive buzz.
Honey Bees Collecting Pollen
Did you know that a bee can fly up to six miles at a rate of
fifteen miles per hour? The average bee only makes about one-twelfth
of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. It takes approximately
five hundred and fifty worker bees to gather one pound of honey
from over two million flowers.
It only takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee's flight around
the world. Did you know that a bee visits fifty to one hundred
flowers during a single collection trip? A colony of bees is made
up of 20,000 to 60,000 bees and one honey bee queen. Worker honey
bees live from six to eight weeks, are always female and do all
the work around the hive.
Bees Building Intricate Hives
It is estimated that eleven hundred bee stings are required to
be fatal; that is, of course, unless you are allergic to their
sting. Each honey bee communicates with the others by doing a
sort of dance; as if pantomiming. They are intelligent creatures
with a basic knowledge of math in order to build such intricate
hives.
During the winter months, bees feed on the honey they collected
during the summer months. To keep the queen bee and themselves
warm, they form a tight cluster inside their honey bee hives.
Honey Bees Communicate By Peforming A Dance
Of all these honey bee facts, the way that honey bees communicate
with one another by performing a dance is perhaps the most unusual
and memorable. As well, the fact that they are the only insect
that produces edible food for humans is simply astonishing, and
the more you learn about the creators of honey, the more astounded
you will be.
Theirs is a highly organized society, as they act with intricate
cooperation. The varied products produced from their handiwork
will have you admiring and respecting this amazing insect.
About the Author:
Rodger G Allenby has written a number of articles on gardening
and landscaping including Garden
Supplies, Green
Lawn, Grass
Seed, Bird
Baths, Hummingbird
Feeders, Gardening
Tools, Backyard
Putting Green, Backyard
Ideas, Backyard
Landscaping Pictures, Outdoor
Fire Pit, Underground
Pet Fence, Potting
Table, Backyard
Fences, Fish
Ponds, Enclosed
Porch.
Keep a lookout for more of his articles on this website.
Little Known Honey Bees Facts....
How is the honey harvested from honey bees?
Honey bees that are commercially grown and
have honey harvested are set up in specially designed hives or
boxes. Each of the boxes contains several wooden frames. The bees
instinctively build their combs and start producing their honey
within these frames.
When the bees have filled their hive with
honey, the farmer will don protective head and body gear so that
he or she can harvest the excess honey. In order to do this they
will often employ smoke to make the honey bees less excitable.
Bee keepers are very careful to not take all of the honey. Bees
live off the honey so some has to stay behind to help nourish
the young and keep the bees strong.
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