Honey bee (Apis mellifera)

Honey bee is also known as a European Honey Bee or a Western Honey bee. Honey bees are incredibly important pollinators for flowers, fruits, & vegetables. It is their primary value. Honey bees are flying insects which flies a speed of around 25km per hour, beating their wings 200 times a second. They are known for collecting nectar from said plants and produce honey from it. Honey bees transfer pollen between the male & female parts to allow flowers, fruits, & vegetables to grow.

What they look like:

Honey bees are mustard yellow and brown in color. they have hairy, stocky bodies, to which the pollen sticks on to their hair.

Where they are from:

Honey bees are not native to the Americas but it seems that they have originated in eastern tropical Africa and spread from there to Europe and eastwards into Asia to the Tien Shan range. It is variously called the European, western, or common honey bee in different parts of the world.

What they eat: 

Firstly, honey bees mostly eat and drink the pollen and nectar they harvested from flowers, but there are some differences in bee diets depending on the age of the bee and species, and there are also some exceptions to this general rule. 

Bee members in a colony:

Honey bees are social insects that live in hives (or colonies) and are divided into three types of members with specific tasks to support the colony.

• Queen Bee: There is only one queen bee who runs the whole hive. Her job is to lay eggs to spawn the next generation of bees for the hive. The queen can live up to five years. She is busiest in the summer months, when she can lay up to 2,500 eggs a day! The queen fertilizes each egg as it is being laid. The queen occasionally will not fertilize an egg. These non-fertilized eggs develop into male drones.

• Male Drones: These are male bees and their main function is to mate with the new queen.
• Worker Bees: These are all female bees and they forage for nectar and pollen from flowers and do all different tasks to maintain the hive. They build & protect the hive, clean and circulate air by beating their wings. Worker bees are the only bees most people ever see flying around outside the hive.

Honey Bee Facts : Where they are from, what they eat, and what they look like

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