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Honey Bee

Honey Bee Side

Honey Bee Booty

Apis mellifera

The name, from Latin, means “honey carrying” and refers to the ball of pollen they carry on their legs (seen in the top photo). This one was buzzing about a plum tree bloom at the Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC.

The Social Life of Honey Bees
Honey bees are incredibly cooperative in a large colony structure, unlike the Carpenter Bee which tends to be fairly solitary. Honey bees are known for creating their nests out of wax and storing honey. Though other bee species also create honey, there is only one true type of honey bee (genus Apis). Their social behavior and high level of cooperation isn’t unique to bees as bumble bees and stingless bees also share a degree of their gregarious impulses. Their eusocial organization defines their hive segments with worker bees (usually sterile females), drone bees (fertile males) and one queen bee.

The Queen Bee gets to make loads of babies (8 years of up to 1,500 a day). She is larger than the other bees, has a chewing mouthpiece and her stinger is not barbed so she can use it deliver venom multiple times.

The Drones (boys) have one job – to mate with the Queen. They have bigger eyes (to spot the lucky lady). Not many Drones hang around the hive and aren’t essential beyond mating – which is why when the magic is over they are evicted from the hive and left to die (generally living only 8 weeks). Since the bee stinger is a modified ovipositor with a gland to deliver venom, the boys can’t sting. They are totally harmless.

The Workers (sterile females) do just about everything to keep the hive running and they are very adept at doing so. The young workers actually work in the hive – making combs, royal jelly, temperature regulation and helping with all the babies. When they get old they go out to collect nectar. They have special pollen baskets on their legs (seen in the photos above, called a corbiculum) and an extra stomach for storing and transporting nectar. They also have 4 glands near their belly to produce beeswax. They have a straight stinger with barbs that they can only use once. When a honey bee stings you the barbs ensures the stinger gets stuck in your skin, releasing venom but also ripping out the abdomen of the bee spelling certain death. Worker bees can live anywhere from 6 weeks to several months depending on when they were born in the season.

The Sweet Stuff
We’ve been fascinated with bees for quite some time – likely because they make such tasty things. By harvesting and refining nectar they make honey as a food stock. Bees need the honey over winter because they do not hibernate but rather stay active and need to keep metabolizing honey for energy. Bees also make beeswax (to build the nest), propolis (a bee glue made from plant resin to seal cracks), and royal jelly (a super food secreted from the head of young worker bees given to babies or queens).

For more fun, my favorite show Nova did an awesome segment on Honey Bees. Check out Nova’s Bee Special!

Oh, and hi Rob! Thanks for hanging in there. I promise this blog with get more love soon!