It all began with an idea. As I approached retirement I wanted to make sure I had a hobby to fill my time.
These are just some of the amazing facts that I have learned.
The queen will lay around 1,500 eggs per day
“A beehive in summer can have as many as 50,000 to 80,000 bees. A bee must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey. It requires 556 worker bees to gather a pound of honey. Bees fly more than once around the world to gather a pound of honey..”
“Honey comes in different colours and flavours. The flower where the nectar was gathered from determines the flavour and colour of the honey”
Bees have two stomachs - one stomach for eating and the other special stomach is for storing nectar collected from flowers or water so that they can carry it back to their hive
“The average worker bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime”
Although bears do like honey, they prefer to eat the bee larvae
“Nectar is a sweet watery substance that the bees gather. After they process the nectar in their stomach they regurgitate it into the honeycomb cells. Then they fan with their wings to remove excess moisture. The final result is honey.
“The average life of a honey bee during the working season is about three to six weeks.”
Every 3rd mouthful of food is produced by bees pollinating crops. Flowering plants rely on bees for pollination so that they can produce fruit and seeds. Without bees pollinating these plants, there would not be very many fruits or vegetables to eat
“Honey has natural preservative and bacteria can't grow in it. Honey was found in the tombs in Egypt and it was still edible! Bees have been here around 30 million years”
A single beehive can make more than 100 pounds (45 kg) of extra honey. The beekeeper only harvests the extra honey made by the bees”
A honeybee can fly 24 km in an hour at a speed of 15 mph. Its wings beat 200 times per second or 12,000 beats per minute.