Bees 101

While on his way out to play, with his Mission to Mars Lego spaceship (yes he built that), Zach was distracted by the buzzing of the bees in the flowers nearby. I was making meatballs when he came in and asked for a container of sorts to catch a bee. "Only if you are nice to it," was my response--meaning the bee, not the container.

 

I may sound crazy, but I love bees. (I've already shared my love for snakes too.) And, I am an encyclopedia of bee knowledge, this stemming from my years of teaching preschoolers. Here are 10 fun bee facts for you...

1. 99.9% of the bees you see out and about, hovering over flowers and your food are female. In fact, you rarely see a male cruisin' the hood. This is because...

2. Females are the worker bees and do all the work in and out of the hive. They have jobs--pollen collecting, honey producing, cell making and cleaning, feeding the young, tending to the Queen, making Queens (by selecting a few larvae and feeding them the special honey--royal jelly.)

3. Males on the other hand have NO stingers, because they have ONE job...to find and mate with a Queen. Thus they are never around, stopping to smell the roses. They are on a B-line (no pun intended!) mission to visit the local hives. (Yes women...even if we were bees, life would be no different.)

4. Oh, and upon inspection into the hives, females will, and do, kick them out. Especially if they are not living up to standards. (You know, general laziness, lack of manners and social skills--really!)

5. In order for one bee to make one tablespoon of honey, they log in MILES of travel.

6. Flavored honey comes from bees that pollenate in a certain orchard or field. For example: clover honey comes from honeys that pollenate clover. Make sense?

7. The honey is actually regurgitated bee pollen--yes, from their stomachs. And you think it's so tasty!

8. A hive's survival is dependent upon keeping the hive at a certain temperature. In the winter, they slow their production down and huddle together and do a lot of wiggling and buzzing to create heat. In the summertime they send workers (yes females) out to collect water. They bring the water droplets back and stand in the entrance of the hive and flutter their wings over the water to create cool air. (They invented the first air conditioners!)  This is also why you always see a lone bee stranded in a pool--she was trying to collect water! So don't swish her out and kill her! By all means, rescue her, put her in a warm spot and let her dry off so she can get back to work!

9. Honey bees only sting if they feel that their honey is in danger. They will alert their family of the "danger" by giving off a certain stink. It is an altruistic act to sting, for they die when they do. (Kinda gross, but when they pull away the stinger is left with you, along with their entire intestinal innards.)

10. Bee keepers smoke a hive to mask the bee's alert stink, thus he can open the hive and take the honey he needs. Upon a visit to the Bee Biology Lab at UCDavis, with 20 preschoolers, the bee keeper gave them all little bee keeper uniforms (complete with helmets and netting). He smoked the hive and pulled out a section and found the males (remember, no stingers) and let them crawl all over the little kid's hands--worry free.

So. There you are. I hope you are sufficiently schooled now in bee knowledge and will me more mindful of them as they buzz around this summer. And don't kill them! They are vital to the growth cycles of plants and the health of our ecosystem. I know I sound all peace, love and granola-y but bees are struggling now. There's been a lot of talk in the news lately of their decreasing numbers. We need them! Come on...give'em a little love.

p.s. And yes, the bee that Zach caught was eventually set free. A little traumatized but she flew right back to work. Again, a testimony to the strength of the female species. :)