I recently received a gift of honey. Not honey honey, but honey spread. The box sported many bee facts and I didn’t want them to go to waste so I thought I would share. According to the Bumbleberry Farms Honey Cream Spread box:
Questions and answers:
—How fast does a bee fly?
——————————-About 15 miles per hour
—How many flowers does a honeybee visit during one collection trip?
——————————-A worker bee visits about 50-100 flowers during each trip
—How far does a hive of bees fly to bring you one pound of honey?
——————————-More than 55,000 miles
—How much honey does the average worker honeybee make in her lifetime?
——————————-About 1/12 of a teaspoon
—How many wings does a honeybee have?
——————————-Each honeybee has 4 wings
—How much honey would it take to fuel a bee’s flight around the world?
——————————-About one ounce, or 2 tablespoons
—How many sides does each honeycomb cell have?
——————————-Each cell is a six-sided hexagon
—What is mead?
——————————-Mead is wine made from honey
—Which state is known as the Beehive State?
——————————-Utah
—How many honey-producing colonies of bees are there in the United States?
——————————-The USDA estimates that there are about 2.68 million honey-producing colonies in the United States.
—What does “super” mean to a beekeeper?
——————————-Supers are the hive boxes in which honey is stored, usually places above the deeper box called the “hive body”, where brood (developing bees) is reared.
—How do honeybees communicate with one another?
——————————-They communicate by dancing. Honeybees do a dance which alerts the other bees where nectar and pollen are located. The dance explains direction and distance. Bees also communicate with pheromones, a unique odor common to the particular beehive.
Just laying out the facts:
—The keeping of bees is known as Apiculture
—An apiary is where several bee colonies, or hives, are kept in one place
—There are over 200,000 beekeepers in the United States
—Honey is the only food that won’t spoil
—1 in 3 bites of food is pollinated by an insect.
—Honeybee mating takes place in flight, account for the drone’s need for better vision
—A male bee or drone has eyes twice the size of a worker or queen bee
—A healthy queen can lay up to 30,000 eggs a day
—A queen lays her own weight in eggs every couple of hours
—Contrary to what the name implies, a queen does not actually control a hive, and her sole job is to be an egg-laying machine
Wow! Did you know that? So interesting. Bees are pretty amazing. Do you know any bee facts you would like to share?
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