We often do not pay attention to the world around us. We have such a diverse fauna and flora that so many interesting things are missed. Bees are the hardest working insects in the world. No one else in the last 50 million years has been able to repeat the unique actions that took place behind the thin walls of honeycombs in the hive. Bees are real workers, and they don’t care about the weather.
1. During a fire, the bees have a self-preservation instinct, and they begin to stock up on honey, thereby not paying attention to strangers. Therefore, the use of smoke in beekeeping is effective.
2. Bees in the amount of two hundred individuals must work during the day so that a person receives one spoonful of honey.
3. These insects secrete wax in order to fix all honeycombs.
4. Be sure to keep a certain number of bees in the hive all the time to ensure high-quality ventilation to evaporate excess moisture from the nectar, which turns into honey.
5. To warn other bees about the presence of a source of food, the bee begins to perform a special dance with the help of circular flights around its axis.
6. On average, bees fly at a speed of 24 km/h.
7. An average bee family can collect up to 10 kg of honey during the day.
8. A bee can easily fly long distances and still find its way home.
9. Approximately within a radius of two kilometers, each bee finds a source of food.
10. In a day, a bee can explore an area of more than 12 hectares.
11. Up to eight kilograms can reach the weight of an average bee swarm.
12. An average bee family consists of about 50 thousand bees.
13. About 160 ml is the weight of nectar, which is deposited by a bee in one comb.
14. About 100 thousand particles of pollen are part of one cell.
15. Empty combs without honey and brood are called dry land.
16. In one day, a bee makes 10 sorties in the area and brings 200 mg of pollen.
17. Up to 30% of the entire bee family work daily to collect pollen.
18. Poppy, lupine, wild rose, corn allow bees to collect only pollen.
19. The composition of nectar includes glucose, sucrose and fructose.
20. Mostly bee honey consists of a large amount of glucose.
21. Honey with a large amount of fructose is characterized by a low level of crystallization.
22. Bees choose pollen with sufficient sucrose content.
23. During the flowering of fireweed and raspberries, the collection of honey increases by 17 kg in one day.
24. In Siberia, bees collect the largest amount of honey.
25. 420 kg of honey - the maximum recorded record of honey collection by one family from a honey hive for a season.
26. In a bee family, all important duties are equally distributed.
27. About 60% of bees work to collect nectar in a family that weighs more than five kilograms.
28. To collect 40 grams of nectar, one bee must visit about 200 sunflower flowers.
29. The weight of a bee is 0.1 grams. Its carrying capacity is: with nectar 0.035 g, with honey 0.06 g.
30. Bees do not empty their intestines in winter (at all).
31. Swarm bees do not sting.
32. Too much smoke can make the bees angry.
33. The queen bee does not sting a person even in an irritated state.
34. About 100 g of honey is needed to raise a thousand larvae.
35. On average, a bee family requires 30 kilograms of honey per year.
36. Honeycombs built by bees are characterized by distinctive strength and durability.
37. A bee can prolong its life five times.
38. Bees are characterized by highly developed olfactory receptors.
39. At a distance of one kilometer, a bee is able to smell the smell of a flower.
40. During the flight, bees lift loads, large masses of their own body.
41. A bee with a load can accelerate up to 65 kilometers per hour.
42. About 10 million flowers need to be visited by a bee to collect one kilogram of honey.
43. One bee is able to visit about 7 thousand flowers in one day.
44. Among the bees there is also a special kind of albino, which is characterized by white eyes.
45. Bees can communicate with each other.
46. With the help of body movements and pheromones, bees communicate with each other.
47. Up to 50 mg of nectar can be brought by one bee per flight.
48. It should also be noted that during a long flight a bee can eat half of the collected nectar.
49. Even in Egypt, as excavations have shown, they were engaged in beekeeping 5 thousand years ago.
50. In the vicinity of the Polish city of Poznan, there is a beekeeping museum, which includes more than a hundred old beehives.
51. During excavations, scientists discovered ancient coins depicting bees.
52. One bee can explore an area of more than 12 hectares.
53. A bee can carry a load that is 20 times more than its own body weight.
54. A bee can reach speeds of up to 65 km per hour.
55. In one second, a bee makes up to 440 wing flaps.
56. There are cases in history when bees built their hives on the roofs of houses.
57. The distance from the Earth to the Moon is equal to the path that one bee flies during the honey collection.
58. Bees, in order to find nectar, are guided by the special color of flowers.
59. The main pest of bees is the hawk moth, it can copy the sounds of the queen bee.
60. One bee family needs about two glasses of water per day.
61. The inhabitants of Ceylon eat bees.
62. One of the amazing wonders of the world is the relationship between a bee and a flower.
63. It is bees that are directly involved in the pollination of vegetables growing in greenhouses.
64. Bees influence the taste properties of vegetables and fruits during their pollination.
65. Honey is included in the list of mandatory products for astronauts and divers.
66. Honey can be absorbed almost completely, especially in extreme conditions.
67. At one time, a bee is able to bring 50 mg of nectar to the hive.
68. Smoke has a calming effect on bees.
69. Bees cannot use a stinger with a full belly of nectar.
70. The smell of laundry soap soothes the bees.
71. Bees do not like strong odors.
72. Honey is characterized by the unique properties of a preservative, which is able to preserve food for a long time.
73. The Romans and Greeks used honey to preserve fresh meat.
74. Honey was used for embalming in Ancient Egypt.
75. Honey is characterized by a unique property - to keep food fresh for a long time.
76. Honey contains a huge amount of useful substances, vitamins and microelements.
77. Each hive has its own guard bees, which reliably protect it from enemy attacks.
78. A bee can fly into someone else's hive deliberately. The reason is the plundering of a weaker family, when it’s bad around with a bribe, or the inability to return to her family (late, cold, rain), in this case she assumes a pose of humility and the watchman let her through.
79. These insects recognize their fellows by the smell of the body.
80. A bee can perform various tasks during its life.
81. A worker bee can live up to 40 days.
82. With the help of dance, useful information is transmitted between bees.
83. A bee has five eyes.
84. Due to the peculiarity of vision, bees see flowers of blue, white and yellow colors best.
85. The uterus mates with the drone on the fly, at a speed of about 69 km / h. The uterus mates with several males, who die after mating because their reproductive organ remains in the uterus. The uterus has enough sperm obtained for mating for life (up to 9 years).
86. About 17 days is the maturation of a bee egg.
87. The upper jaws of a bee are needed in order to collect honey.
88. At the end of summer, the queen with a swarm of bees goes in search of a new home.
89. During the wintering period, the bees huddle into a ball, in the center of which the queen sits, and continuously move to warm her. As they move, they generate heat. The temperature in the ball is up to 28 °. The bees also feed on stored honey.
90. About 50 kg of pollen is stored by one bee family during the summer.
91. Four stages of development pass during the life of a bee.
92. The bee dies immediately after releasing the sting.
93. Autumn hatching bees live 6-7 months - they survive the winter well. The bees participating in the main honey collection die already in 30-40 days. In spring and autumn, bees live no longer than 45-60 days.
94. A queen bee can lay 1,000 to 3,000 eggs in one day.
95. A young queen independently establishes a whole colony.
96. The African bee is the most dangerous of all existing bee species.
Today's article will be devoted to interesting facts about insects that love teamwork and teamwork, namely bees. Let's start with the amazing hard workers familiar to many who spend their lives in search of flowers. So let's get started.
Interesting facts about bees
In large bee colonies, up to 80 thousand bees can be located at the same time. For a year, one such bee family eats about 225 kilograms of honey. All working bees are females. At the head of the hive is the queen bee. She is the brain and heart of the whole family and she is the only one of all who can give birth. Why? The fact is that worker bees, when they feed the larvae, can ask them a different diet.
Depending on how the larva was fed, in the future it can become either a working or a queen. With a change in the composition of the feed, the larva develops full-fledged genitals and it is from it that the future queen will turn out. In appearance, the uterus is slightly larger than the rest of the bees (in the photo on the right, it is marked with a green dot on the back). 
In the spring, the bees change their diet for their queen and she loses weight a little, this is done so that she can fly again. When the time has come, the queen flies out of the nest and mates with 5-10 drones (males) at a height of up to 30 m. Upon returning to the nest, she begins to lay eggs and will continue to do so until next spring.
During the day, the queen bee lays 1500-2000 eggs from which her daughters, worker bees, will later hatch. If in the spring, when the queen is supposed to mate, there will be non-flying weather, then she will begin to lay unfertilized eggs. They will hatch male bees - drones, but they do not work for the benefit of the hive. However, workers specially grow drones, sparing no effort and food, because without them there will be no continuation of the genus of honey bees. If the queen did not have time to mate, then the entrance to the hive will be free for drones from other families.
If the colony feels that the queen is ill, or she is dysfunctional, then the worker bees immediately grow a new, young queen in return. All actions are aimed at the preservation and healthy functioning of the family.
Average life expectancy of bees:
uterus 4-5 years,
worker bees in the summer - 30 - 60 days,
a worker bee bred in the autumn and overwintered - 190-210 days.
The bees born in the spring-summer period work the hardest, building honeycombs, collecting nectar and pollen, guarding the hive and other seasonal work. Thus, their resource is consumed quickly and the life span is short. Autumn bees, on the contrary, live long because they did not spend their energy on summer work.
In one flight from the nest, a honey bee flies about a thousand flowers. To collect one kilogram of honey, one bee will need to make more than 60 thousand flights and bypass about one million flowers.
If for some reason there is not enough honey for overwintering, then the worker bees are the first to die even before the food shortage begins. Reducing the number of workers reduces the consumption of honey. By sacrificing itself, the worker bee takes care of the queen and the safety of the family.
The bees' favorite scents are subtle floral scents. Unloved can be called sharp and strong, especially strongly the bees do not like the strong smell from horses, dogs and goats. These animals are often attacked by bees in the Dead Sea.
The most unloved smell that all bees will react to is the smell of poison. As soon as one bee stings, hundreds of guards will rush into battle. Therefore, when moving in the apiary, you should be extremely careful, do not make sudden movements, do not make noise and do not use perfume. Inga Korneshova specially for the site We hope our article has helped you to get to know and get to know “from the inside” the life of these small insects.
Photo of a swarm of bees flying away with a new queen from the hive in search of a new home. 
Bees see very poorly and are not able to distinguish objects located further than one and a half meters. But their natural short-sightedness is generously compensated by their sense of smell. Striped insects fly precisely to smells.
Honey production is hard work. To get just 100 g of a sweet treat, this worker must fly around an average of 1 million flowers. Through a special tubule - the proboscis - the collected nectar enters a special bee organ - the honey ventricle.
Not all of them can sting a person, as many mistakenly think. The queen bee never shows aggression towards humans. But he stings his rivals without sparing.
Bees do not collect honey for pleasure - they take care of healthy offspring and their nutrition. To feed a thousand larvae, insects must collect 100 grams of honey, fifty grams of pollen and 30 grams of water.
The bees "didn't graduate from universities" and are not trained in mathematics. Nevertheless, they manage to create the most perfect geometric figure in the world of wildlife - the hexagonal cell that makes up the honeycomb.
The life expectancy of each worker bee is no more than 40 days. During this time, she manages to complete several important missions. First, he is engaged in "dirty work": he cleans the cells in which the uterus is to lay eggs. Then he makes sure that the hive is warm and there is enough fresh air. And only at the end of her life she fulfills her main calling - she extracts honey.
Judging by the number of deaths caused by bee stings, these insects are much more dangerous to humans than snakes.
The drone - the "husband" of the queen bee - mates with its "half" in the air. For everything about everything, the couple takes five seconds. Immediately after the end of the process, the male loses the reproductive organ, which remains inside the queen bee, and dies.
To collect as much pollen as possible, they use the entire body hairline to the maximum. Even the hairs growing from their eyes become "collectors". Collecting pollen greatly facilitates the effect of the electric field. The fact is that each individual is a carrier of a negative charge, and pollen has a positive charge. Thus, when an insect lands on a flower, its contents "stick" to it by themselves. After the visit of the bee, the polarity of the empty flower changes, and another insect, flying up to collect, realizes in time that the plant is still useless.
There are real wars between bees and hornets. For example, the Japanese, who breed not their own, but more productive European bees, for the sake of obtaining honey, can very often observe how local striped robbers, huge hornets, attack “euro hives”. However, there is no need to interfere: guests can fend for themselves. They surround each raider, enclosing it in a kind of ball, and then, working with muscles, create a temperature that is deadly for the hornet inside: + 47 °.
The sweet delicacy produced by bees attracts many. But not everyone is into it. For example, honeyguide birds do not risk climbing into the hive themselves. To taste honey, they resort to trickery: they lead a person, a bear or another living creature to the hive, which is capable of opening the bee house. And then they patiently wait for the "invader" to take his share, so that after that they can eat the crumbs from someone else's dinner.
Bees are able to detect mines, as well as other explosive devices or substances, by smell. That is why they are in the "official service" of the Pentagon.
Very useful insects that pollinate plants and flowers, giving us a tasty and healthy product called honey. But few people know that bees can, for example, recognize people's faces.
About this and more many interesting facts and will be discussed further.
bee venom
A bee venom toxin called melittin maybe prevent spread of HIV in the blood. Melittin might even kill HIV, piercing the protective shell of this virus. At the same time, the poison does not harm normal cells, leaving them unharmed.
Scientists in St. Louis, USA hope the toxin can be used as a preventive measure.
Bee venom can also ease the pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil found that the molecules found in bee venom increase glucocorticoids in the body (anti-inflammatory hormone).
The bees work hard
After the arrival of cold weather, worker bees can live for up to nine months.
But in the summer they rarely live longer than six weeks. During this period of the year, the bees literally work to exhaustion.
A certain job for the bee
Each bee clearly performs only its specific duties. scout bees looking for new sources of food. soldier bees, which scientists only discovered in 2012 have been working as security guards all their lives. There are also funeral bees, responsible for cleaning the hive from dead bees.
But there are also the most amazing individuals who can change their jobs throughout their lives. This causes chemical changes in their brains.
bee brain
When the process of aging of the whole organism begins in bees, their brain avoids this. In fact, their brains develop in the opposite direction. Imagine that you are riding a bike that makes you feel younger and younger.
Some scientists believe this discovery will help us slow down onset of dementia.
healing hives
Bees use resin to strengthen their hive. poplars and an evergreen tree called propolis. Propolis is a kind glue for the hive.
Although bees use it to store honey, but people to fight bacteria, viruses and fungi.
Studies show that propolis taken from the beehive can treat:
- Herpes.
- Stomatitis.
- Angina.
- Eczema.
Bees recognize faces
Honey bees are capable of recognize facial features of people. They see all the outlines of the face: eyebrows, lips and ears. It's called "configuration processing" which is hoped to help computer scientists improve technology face recognition.
Bees are individual
Even in hives, there are honest bees and truant bees. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that Not all bees are interchangeable at work.
Some bees are thrill seekers. Others have a timid demeanor. In 2011, through research, they discovered that bees can be pessimists, thus proving that to some extent they can even have the senses.
Bees enjoy caffeine and cocaine
Nature created caffeine not for enjoyment. In fact, it protects plants by driving harmful insects away and attracting pollinators to itself.
Scientists from the University of Newcastle found that caffeinated nectar helps bees recall, where the flower is, increasing the chances of a return visit.
While caffeine makes bees perform better, cocaine makes them real liars.
Honey bees, upon returning to the hive, announce the nectarine hot spots to others through dance. So scientists observed such bees, having previously applied cocaine to their backs. After that, the bees performed their communication dances, in essence, not having this right, thereby deceiving others.
By studying this behavior of buzzing insects, scientists want to better understand the disease of drug addiction.
bees like vikings
Bees use the sun as compass. But when it's cloudy, they navigate by polarized light, using special photoreceptors to discern where the sun is in the sky.
The Vikings may have used a similar system: on sunny days, their navigation worked with a sundial, but on cloudy days "sun stones"(pieces of calcite), which act like a Polaroid camera, helped them stay on course.
Bees are mathematicians
Imagine that you need to do some errands. For example, you have to visit six stores, and they are all in six different locations. How to calculate the shortest distance by visiting all six places? Mathematicians call it "traveling salesman problem" and when solving it, they can even involve a computer.
Everyone knows about the benefits brought by small workers - bees. Read interesting facts about bees.
All bees are excellent travelers. They unmistakably find their way back home, even flying away from it for 8 kilometers.
After the onset of the cold season, worker bees can only live for nine months.
Collecting a whole kilogram of honey requires 4500 flights of bees, during which nectar is collected from 6-10 million flowers. A large and healthy family is able to collect 10-20 kg of nectar per day, giving from 5 to 10 kg of honey.
To get just one spoon of honey (which is 30 g), 400 bees need to work hard. At the same time, one half of them collects pollen, while the other receives and processes nectar in the hive itself.
The inhabitants of Ceylon consider bees to be a delicacy eaten at dinner.
The weight of a normal bee swarm reaches 7-8 kg, and it contains 50-60 thousand bees. This bee collective has 2-3 kg of honey in its goiter. In case of inclement weather, the bees will be able to eat with a supply of honey for 8 days.
A strong family of bees during the honey collection season flies a path equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
To grow a thousand larvae, you need 100 g of honey, 50 g of pollen from flowers, and 30 g of water. Each bee family needs up to 30 kg of pollen per year.
Honey is included in the diet of astronauts without fail.
Scientists have found that melittin, a toxin found in bee venom, can stop the spread of HIV in the blood. By destroying the protective shell of the HIV virus, the toxin is able to kill it. Interestingly, the poison does not harm normal cells.
Speaking of interesting facts about bees, remember that our ancestors used bees as a weapon. For example, soldiers from the army of Richard the Lionheart threw vessels with bee swarms into the besieged fortresses.
For bees, nectar from a mixture of sugars is much more attractive than nectar from a single type of sugar. Even at the same concentration.
A honeycomb cell is the most rational natural geometric shape of a vessel. It is interesting that the minimum amount of building material is spent on its construction - only 1.3 g of wax is required per 100 cells. The strength and capacity of such a cell is amazing.
Honey bees recognize human facial features. At the same time, the bees capture all the elements of the face - lips, eyebrows and ears. The researchers called this process "configuration processing." It is possible that this will help scientists involved in pattern recognition to develop their technologies.
A bee unloaded with nectar can reach a speed of 65 km/h.
Statistics show that Americans consume approximately 130 million kg of honey every year. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, bees pollinate 80% of agricultural crops, bringing in more than $ 20 billion annually to the country.
An interesting video about how a flock of bees fight a hornet:
