Bees

Bees

Early bees would have come from the ant/wasp family and would have been predators which fed on other insects.
The first pollinating bees (family Melittidae) appeared about 120 million years ago in Africa and have been around since the time that the first flowering plants came into existence.
There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world with 101 species in Ireland alone.  Bees are probably one of the most important insects, without their role in the pollination of plants one third of our diet would be gone. There would be few flowers, fruit or berries and that’s not to mention the amount of species of animal that would be wiped out since their food sources are gone.  Bees are worth 18 billion to the American economy per annum.

Many bees live in hives with the Mother (the queen), the daughters (Workers), and the males (Drones).

Queen
The queen bee becomes queen when she is fed by the young workers on a diet of royal jelly which is secreted from their heads, this is protein rich food.  This this diet makes her develop stronger and become fertile. If she was not on this diet she would just be a worker. She spends most of her life producing young as many as 2000 eggs per day which is more than her bodyweight.  The others feed her and clear away her waste.
Queens have stingers which they use to get rid of rival queens. They live for approximately 2 - 5 years.
When a queen gets to old the workers kill the old queen by cuddling her to death, this is where the workers gather around her tightly till the heat kills her.

Workers
Worker bees are all females that cannot produce young.  It is their job to clean and keep the hive at the right temperature. They cool the hive by flapping their wings and heat it by vibrating their bodies. When not looking after the hive workers spend their time gathering pollen into pollen baskets on their back legs and spreading the pollen on their body’s from flower to flower. When collecting nectar they use their long, tube like tongues like straws (called proboscis) to suck the nectar out of the flowers and they store it in their stomachs and carry it to the beehive.  After been inside the bee's stomach for about half an hour, the nectar mixes with the proteins and enzymes produced by the bees converting the nectar into honey.  It takes roughly two million flowers to make half a kilo gram of honey.

It is estimated that the average honey bee will fly a total of about 500 miles (800 kilometres) in its lifetime which is just over a month.

Drones
Drones are the male wasp they do not possess a sting nor collect pollen or nectar. They serve two main purposes one is to make more bees with the queen bee and the other is to help regulate the temperature by moving its wings to cool, or vibrating its body to create warmth as the workers do. Drones only enjoy a little over a month of life.

Senses
A bee’s sight is very sensitive to UV light, this helps them to see pollen more clearly as it stands out from the flower more.
Bees signal each other by dancing in different directions to signal where the best nectar is.  It has recently been discovered that they also do this to warn of danger in an area.
Having a very keen sense of smell and able to detect tiny changes in scent has resulted British customs training bees to detect illegal drugs in luggage by rewarding them with honey.  Apparently it is really working!

So next time you are in a British airport be careful not to stand on a bee it may be an undercover customs officer involved in a sting operation.  Sorry!!