Bee is an insect that lives in almost every part of the world except near the North and South poles. Bees are one of the most useful of all insects. They produce honey, which people use as food; and beeswax, which is used in such products as adhesives, candles, and cosmetics. There are about 20,000 species (kinds) of bees. Only the kinds known as honey bees make honey and wax in large enough amounts to be used by people.
Flowers provide food for bees. The bees collect tiny grains of pollen and a sweet liquid called nectar from the blossoms they visit. They make honey from the nectar, and use both honey and pollen as food. During their food-gathering flights, bees spread pollen from one flower to another, thus pollinating (fertilizing) the plants they visit. This enables the plants to reproduce. Numerous wild plants and such important food crops as fruits and vegetables depend on bees for fertilization.
Bees probably developed from wasplike ancestors that first got their food by eating other insects. These creatures gradually switched to flowers as their food source. In time, bees became completely dependent on flowers for food. The flowers, in turn, benefited from the bees. Scientists believe that over the years, bees helped create the wide variety of flowers in the world today by spreading pollen among various plants.
Like most insects, bees have three pairs of legs and four wings. They also have a special stomach, called a honey stomach, in which they carry nectar. All female bees have a sting, which they use for self-defense.
Bees can be grouped into two general categories. Most are solitary bees. That is, they live alone. Honey bees and bumble bees are examples of social bees that live and work together in large groups, or colonies.
The honey bee colony
A typical honey bee colony is made up of one queen, tens of thousands of workers, and a few hundred drones. The queen is the female honey bee that lays eggs. The workers are the unmated female offspring of the queen. The drones are the male offspring.
Honey bees live in hives. The hive is a storage space, such as a hollow tree or a box, which contains a honeycomb. The honeycomb is a mass of six-sided compartments called cells. Worker bees build the honeycomb of wax produced by their bodies. They also collect a sticky substance called propolis, or bee glue, from certain kinds of trees. They use it to repair cracks in the hive.
The honeycomb is used to raise young bees and to store food. The queen bee lays one egg in each cell in part of the honeycomb. In general, the cells containing the eggs and developing bees are in the center of the hive. This area is called the brood nest. The bees store pollen and honey in cells above and around the brood nest. The same cells may be used for different purposes. During spring and summer, many cells are used to raise young bees. In fall, brood production stops, and more cells are available for storing honey through the winter.
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Honey bees on comb
The contents of the hive are a prized source of food for many animals, including bees from other colonies. Several workers always guard the entrance to the hive. The bees in each hive have their own special odor. The guard bees can detect bees from other hives by their smell. The guard bees attack strangers, whether they are bees from outside the colony, bears, or human beings. When the threat to the hive is great, such as a bear that jars the hive, the guard bees give off a special pheromone (chemical substance). The scent of this pheromone, which smells like bananas, alerts other bees in the hive to come to the aid of the guards.
The body of the honey bee
The honey bee, like all insects, has a body that is divided into three sections: the head, the thorax (chest), and the abdomen. The insect’s honey stomach, in which it carries nectar, is in the abdomen. The bee’s body is thickly covered with fine structures called hairs. Bee hair is not true hair, which grows only on mammals, but it resembles true hair. When a bee travels from flower to flower, grains of pollen stick to these hairs. Honey bees range in color from black to shades of light brown. An adult worker honey bee measures about 3/5 inch (1.5 centimeters) long. Drones are slightly larger than workers, and queens are longer than both workers and drones.
Eyes.
A bee has five eyes—three small ones that form a triangle on top of its head, and a large compound eye on each side of its head. Each compound eye has thousands of lenses crowded closely together. Bees cannot focus their eyes because they have no pupils.
Honey bees were the first insects known to be able to distinguish colors. Bees have three kinds of color-sensitive cells in their eyes. These visual cells are especially sensitive to blue, yellow, and ultraviolet rays, which humans cannot see. However, bees cannot distinguish red. To them it blends in with green. In addition to color, bees can distinguish different geometrical patterns, such as those of different kinds of flowers.
Antennae
are slender, jointed feelers attached to the front of the bee’s head. They have tiny sense organs that provide a means of smelling. Tiny hairs on the antennae probably serve as organs of touch.
Mouth.
The bee uses its tongue to suck water, nectar, and honey into its mouth. The tongue is a flexible tube on the outside of the bee’s head. It can be shortened, lengthened, and moved in all directions. On the sides of the tongue are two jaws. The bee uses its jaws as tools to grasp wax and pollen.
Strong muscles are attached to the inside walls of the mouth. A bee sucks nectar up its tongue, through its mouth, and into its honey stomach. It can also reverse this process and bring food from its stomach out through its mouth. In this way, workers put nectar into wax cells or give it to other bees.
Wings.
A bee has two thin wings on each side of its thorax. The two front wings are larger than the hind wings. When the bee flies, the front wings and the smaller hind wings become fastened together by a row of tiny hooks along the edge of the front wings.
The wings can move up and down, and forward and backward. A bee can fly forward, sideways, or backward, and can hover in one place in the air.
Legs.
A bee has three legs on each side of its thorax. Each leg has five main joints, plus tiny segments that make up the foot. The worker bee uses its legs for walking, for brushing pollen off its body, and for handling wax. It carries pollen and propolis on its hind legs.
Each front leg has a notched structure called the antenna cleaner. The bee uses it to clean dirt from its antennae. On the outside of each of the hind legs of worker bees is a smooth area surrounded by long, curved hairs. This area, called the pollen basket, is used to carry pollen. Hairs on the inside of the hind legs help load pollen into the pollen basket. When the worker returns to the hive, it places its hind legs down into a cell and kicks off the pollen. Another worker uses its head to flatten out the pollen on the bottom of the cell.
Sting.
Most bees depend on their stingers, or stings, as their only means of defending their home and their lives. Glands attached to the sting produce a venom (poison) made up of complex chemical substances.
The sting of a worker bee is straight, with barbs (hooks) on it. When the bee thrusts the sting into flesh, the barbs hold tight, and the stinger pulls out of the bee’s body. But muscles inside the sting keep working and force it deep into the wound. At the same time, muscles pump more poison down the sting. A worker bee dies soon after losing its sting.
The queen bee has a smooth, curved sting that she uses only to kill other queens. Queens do not lose their stings as do workers. Drones have no stings.
A bee sting causes sudden pain, and the poison produces continued pain and swelling. A person stung by a bee should scrape the stinger off immediately, being careful not to pinch or squeeze it. This action reduces the amount of poison that enters the wound. Some people are so sensitive to bee stings that they may die from only one sting unless a doctor treats them quickly.
During the 1970’s, American scientists became concerned that swarms of vicious South American “killer bees” might spread to the United States. If their hive is disturbed, these bees attack anything that moves. They attack in large numbers, and their stings have killed people and animals. These bees developed in Brazil in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. A researcher had imported aggressive African honey bees that produce large amounts of honey. Some of the colonies escaped, and some of their queens mated with local drones. The resulting hybrids have spread rapidly throughout much of South America, Central America, and Mexico.
Swarms of hybrid bees reached Texas in 1990. Since the mid-1990’s, swarms of these bees have been sighted in most southern states. They continue to have a serious impact on U.S. beekeeping. Temperature and rainfall needs seem to be preventing the bees from spreading beyond this southern region.
Regulating body temperature.
In order to fly, honey bees must maintain their flight muscles at a temperature of at least 86 °F (30 °C). When honey bees are in flight, the heat from the energy they use up is usually enough to keep their flight muscles warm. When honey bees are not flying, they rapidly shiver their wings to stay warm.
Unlike most other insects, honey bees do not hibernate during the winter. Instead, they form a dense cluster in the hive. The clustered bees keep warm by shivering and by crowding together to seal off escaping heat.
Honey bees can also withstand extreme heat inside the hive. In a hot hive, bees crowd less closely together, creating air channels between them. They also gather water and sprinkle it in the hive. As the water evaporates, it cools the hive.
Life of the honey bee
From egg to adult.
Bees develop from eggs laid by the queen. During mating, the drone places semen (fertilizing fluid) inside the queen’s body. The semen contains sperm (male sex cells). The queen stores the sperm in a sac in her abdomen. If the queen releases sperm onto an egg, the egg hatches into a worker. If she does not release sperm, it develops into a drone.
Honey bee eggs are pearly white and about as big as the head of a pin. A bee starts to develop as soon as the queen lays the egg. After three days, a tiny wormlike larva crawls out of the egg. The workers place larval food, called royal jelly, in the bottom of each cell in the brood nest. Royal jelly is a creamy substance, rich in vitamins and proteins. It is formed by glands in the head of young worker bees. When the larva is three days old, the workers begin feeding it a mixture of honey and pollen called beebread.
The workers build a wax cap over the cell about five days after the larva hatches. A great change then takes place. The wormlike larva becomes a pupa. Then the pupa develops into an adult. The adult worker bee bites its way out of the cell about 21 days after the egg is laid. Drones take about 24 days to develop. See Larva; Pupa.
Growth of the queen.
A colony needs a new queen if the old queen disappears or becomes feeble. A new queen is also needed if the old queen and part of the colony decide to leave and build a new hive.
In some unknown way, the workers select a few larvae to become queens. They feed these larvae only royal jelly. At the same time, other workers build special cells for the queens to grow in. A queen cell looks like half a peanut shell hanging from the honeycomb. About 5 1/2 days after hatching, the queen larva becomes a pupa. The queen crawls out of the cell about 16 days after the egg is laid. Scientists believe bees may add a special substance to the queen’s royal jelly to make her grow faster and have a different appearance from the workers.
Mating flight.
When the young queen emerges from her special cell, the bees in the colony pay little attention to her. She eats honey and gains strength. If two queens hatch at the same time, they fight until one stings the other to death. The old queen may leave the colony, or she may fight with the young queen. After the young queen has killed her rivals, she flies from the hive. She may mate with one or sometimes several drones. The young queen then returns to the hive and begins to lay eggs two or three days later. After mating, the queen can lay eggs for the rest of her life. A queen may live as long as five years and produce up to a million eggs during her lifetime.
Swarming.
When a colony becomes overcrowded, the queen’s egg-laying power diminishes. The workers then build cells for new queens. In these cells, the old queen deposits eggs. After these eggs develop into pupae, the workers cover the cells with wax. A few days after the new queen cells are covered over with wax, many of the workers and the old queen leave the hive as a swarm. Their flight to form a new colony is called swarming. Some workers stay behind in the hive and care for the larvae and the new queen.
Loading the player...Bee buzz
The swarm clusters around a branch or a post after leaving the hive. Workers called scouts then seek out a location for the new colony. Each scout returns to the swarm and uses a special “dance” to indicate the distance and direction of the site it has found to the other scouts. The scouts then investigate one another’s sites. At a signal, the entire swarm travels to whichever site seems best. “Streaker” bees who know where the hive is lead the way. The queen follows.
Finding food.
Flowers provide bees with the pollen and nectar they use as food. Pollen is the young bees’ source of important fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. The sugar in nectar is mainly a source of energy.
Scout bees search for food for the hive. When the scouts find food, they return to the hive and use a dance to tell the other bees where the food is in relation to the sun. The dance is similar to the one scout bees use to indicate the location of a new hive.
Loading the player...Bee feeding
If the food is located toward the sun, the scout makes a series of rapid runs in a modified figure-8 pattern up the honeycomb. If the food is located 30° to the right of the sun, the scout makes a series of runs 30° to the right of an imaginary vertical line on the honeycomb. The dance also indicates the distance of the food. The faster the scout dances, the closer the food.
Making honey.
Flowers often have special glands, called nectaries, that produce nectar. Worker honey bees suck up nectar from the flowers with their long tongues and store it in their honey stomachs. In the stomach, a process called inversion breaks down the sugar in the nectar into two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. When the worker bee returns to the hive, it regurgitates (spits up) the nectar back through its mouth. It either gives the nectar to other bees or puts it in an empty cell in the hive. As the water in the nectar evaporates, the nectar changes into honey.
Loading the player...How a bee makes honey
Workers then put wax caps on the honey-filled cells. Beekeepers collect honey from the combs. But they leave enough in the hive to feed the bees. See Honey.
Making wax.
Special wax-producing glands develop in the abdomens of workers who are about 10 days old. The workers eat large amounts of honey, and the glands convert the sugar in the honey to wax. The wax oozes through small pores (holes) in the body and forms tiny white flakes on the outside of the abdomen. A bee usually makes eight flakes at a time. The bee picks them off its abdomen with its legs and moves them up to its jaws. After chewing the wax, the bee puts the wax on the part of the honeycomb that it is building. The bee produces beeswax only when it needs the wax to build a honeycomb. In general, a worker makes wax from the 10th to 16th day of its life. See Beeswax.
Division of labor.
Laying eggs is the queen’s only job. In the spring, the queen may lay as many as 2,000 eggs a day—about one every 43 seconds.
The only function of drones is to mate with queens. Honey bee drones usually do not mate with the queen of the hive in which they live. They may fly miles away to mate with queens from other hives. Drones are present in the colony only during the summer. They depend on workers to feed them because their tongues are not long enough to obtain nectar. In the fall, when food becomes scarce, the workers stop feeding the drones and drag them out of the hive to die.
Workers do not mate and ordinarily do not lay eggs. They perform a variety of other jobs, however. For the first three days of its adult life, a worker cleans the hive. It spends the next several days feeding developing honey bees. Then the worker begins to produce wax and to build honeycomb cells. After building the honeycombs, the worker stands guard at the hive entrance and receives nectar collected by other bees. Finally, when a worker is about three weeks old, it begins to hunt for food. It continues this job for the rest of its life. During the busy summer months, a worker may live for only about six weeks. During the less active months of fall and winter, a worker may live up to several months.
Threats to bees.
Animals frequently harm bee colonies by eating bees or by damaging their hive. Bears, Argentine ants, and other animals may destroy the hive in their search for honey. Skunks and dragonflies often eat bees. The wax moth may ruin a weak colony by eating the wax in the honeycomb. Worker bees try to protect the colony by stinging invaders to death, but they do not always succeed. An insect called the bee assassin makes a specialty of feeding on bees that it catches in flowers.
Varroa mites, also called honey bee mites, are one of the biggest threats to honey bees worldwide. These mites are parasites that attack developing honey bees. Each mite is about as big as a sesame seed. By feeding on different individuals, the mites quickly spread viruses throughout a colony. These viruses can also be found in colonies with no mites, but the viruses are more deadly in colonies where mites are present. Being preyed upon by mites may weaken a bee’s immune system. A weakened immune system makes the bees less resistant to viruses.
Varroa mites have spread throughout Asia, Europe, and North and South America. In many areas, over half of all hives are infested with mites. Beekeepers and government agencies in the United States and Europe are working to breed bees that are resistant to the mites. The mites have also been found in Australia. To limit the spread of the parasite, Australian government agencies have banned transporting bees in certain areas of the country.
Both young and adult bees sometimes fall victim to such diseases as European foulbrood and American foulbrood. These diseases may turn the bees into a gummy, lifeless mass. They are caused by bacteria. Diseases caused by fungi, such as Nosema disease, are also a threat to bees.
Human activities also harm bees. Insecticides meant to kill other insects kill thousands of bees each year. Weed-killing sprays take away an important source of bee food by destroying weeds and their flowers.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is an unusual condition that destroys hundreds of thousands of honey bee colonies each year in the United States. When a colony is affected by CCD, most of the adult bees disappear from the hive. The colony still contains a queen, immature bees, and honey. Experts are not certain what causes CCD. Mites and agricultural pesticides may contribute to CCD. Pesticides are chemicals used to kill insects and other pests.
Kinds of bees
There are approximately 20,000 species of bees. They can be divided into two main groups—social bees and solitary bees. Social bees live in colonies, while solitary bees live alone. Most kinds of bees are solitary.
Social bees
live in colonies that have as few as 10 or as many as 80,000 members. Honey bees seem to have the most highly developed societies. Stingless bees and bumble bees follow honey bees in social development.
Stingless bees
have small stings but do not use them as weapons. They prefer to bite with their jaws. Stingless bees live only in tropical and near-tropical areas. They are not found in the United States.
The largest kind of stingless bee is about as big as a honey bee, and the smallest is about the size of a mosquito. Stingless bees build nests in trees, on walls, in crude hives, or in open areas. They usually build their honeycombs in horizontal layers. An outer wall surrounds the nest except for a small entrance. Colonies may have from 50 to tens of thousands of bees.
Some of the larger stingless bees store honey. Native South American people have long used this honey for food.
Bumble bees
live in colonies of 50 to several hundred bees. Their honey has a pleasant flavor, but their nests contain only small amounts. See Bumble bee.
Solitary bees
live alone. But sometimes thousands of solitary bees gather in a small area and build their nests close together. There are no workers among the solitary bees. Each female is like a queen that does her own work. She builds her own nest and stores pollen and nectar in it. Then she lays an egg on the pollen in each of the cells, seals the nest, and flies away. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the stored food. The most important kinds of solitary bees are the carpenter, leafcutting, miner, mason, and cuckoo bees. The largest bee is a leafcutting bee called Wallace’s giant bee. Female Wallace’s giant bees measure 1 1/2 inches (3.9 centimeters) long, with a wingspan of 2 1/2 inches (6.4 centimeters).
Carpenter bees
build their nests in dead twigs or branches. The female digs a tunnel, puts pollen and nectar at the bottom, and lays an egg. She spreads tiny wood chips cemented together with saliva across the top of the cell. This ceiling acts as a floor for the cell above. The tunnel has a series of cells, each containing food and one egg.
Leafcutting bees
cut out pieces of leaves and pack them into small nests in tunnels. They lay eggs on food which they put into the nests. They may build their tunnels in the ground, in branches, or in pieces of soft wood. A tunnel may have six or more cells, one above the other.
Mining bees
usually dig tunnels in the ground. Some kinds show the beginnings of social living. After a few bees dig out a main tunnel, each female digs a short tunnel in the side walls. She provides this tunnel with pollen and nectar, and lays an egg on the food. Some kinds of mining bees post a guard at the entrance to the main tunnel. This guard bee attacks any strangers.
Mason bees
sometimes build their nests in decaying wood or in snail shells. One kind strengthens the snail shell with its saliva and small bits of stone. The female puts food in the shell, lays an egg, and covers the whole nest with dried grass, twigs, or pine needles. Another kind of mason bee builds its nest on a wall or large stone. It gathers clay, moistens it with saliva, and forms cells that stick out from the wall. The female provides the cells with food and lays an egg in each. Then she covers the group of cells with a mixture of clay and saliva. The clay hardens and protects the eggs.
Cuckoo bees
do not build their own nests. They cannot provide food for their young, because they have no pollen baskets on their hind legs. Some kinds of cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nests of other solitary bees. The cuckoo bee larvae usually emerge first and eat the food before the other larvae hatch.
Beekeeping
The people of the Stone Age, thousands of years ago, ate honey that they stole from the hives of wild bees. Some of these people learned to make crude hives for the bees, so the honey would be near their homes. They probably made these first beehives out of hollow logs, a pot placed on its side, or a basket turned upside down. Later, farmers in Europe built straw skeps that looked like upside-down baskets. Colonists probably took honey bees with them from England to Virginia in 1622. By the end of the 1700’s, honey bees were fairly common throughout the eastern states. The settlers took honey bees with them as they moved west.
As an industry,
beekeeping is most highly developed in many countries. Farmers who keep hives of bees can sell the honey and beeswax. The bees also aid farmers by pollinating many crops. Commercial beekeeping, also called apiculture, began in the mid-1800’s after the invention of modern hives.
Today, beekeepers in the United States tend hives that produce about 200 million pounds (90 million kilograms) of honey every year. Bakers buy large amounts of honey to use in crackers, cookies, and other baked goods. The rest is packaged in small containers and sold for cooking and as a sweet spread.
About 4 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms) of beeswax is produced and sold in the United States every year. Beeswax is used in candles, lipsticks, polishes, waterproofing compounds, and other products.
Most beekeepers provide standard hives for their bees. The hives are made up of several removable drawerlike supers (sections). The bees build their honeycombs inside the supers on movable frames that hang 3/8 inch (10 millimeters) apart. Bees can pass through this bee space to all parts of the hive, and the beekeeper can move the frames about. Generally, each super holds 10 combs or frames, and each comb contains about 8,000 cells.
Some beekeepers keep from 40 to 75 hives in one location. If they have more colonies, they use out-apiaries (locations) several miles or kilometers apart. The out-apiaries must be separated so that there are enough plants nearby to supply nectar. A colony can gather up to 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) of nectar in a day.
Beekeepers must learn to handle their bees carefully so the bees will not sting them. Slow, deliberate movements do not disturb bees as much as quick movements. Beekeepers usually wear veils of wire screen or cloth to protect their faces. They tie their clothing at the wrists and ankles. Most beekeepers wear gloves with fingers and thumbs cut off to allow more delicate handling. A few beekeepers do not wear gloves.
Some beekeepers in the southern United States sell packages containing workers and a queen to honey producers. They usually ship 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kilograms) of bees in wire-screen packages. Other beekeepers rent hives of bees. Farmers place the hives in or near fields, and the bees pollinate the crops.
As a hobby.
Many people are more interested in studying bees and their habits than in gathering honey. They often keep bees in a glass-walled hive, where they can watch workers communicate by dancing, and see the queen laying eggs while workers care for the young.
Bees can be kept in both city and farm areas. People keep hives in backyards or on rooftops. Honey bees are easy to handle, and their honey may be eaten or sold. A beginner must buy bees either as a package of workers and a queen, or as a complete hive. A beginner should have the colony inspected by the state bee inspector to make sure it is free of disease.
