Amazing Honey Bee Facts

The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by human beings.  The honey bee is a social insect that survives as a member of a community and not alone. 


We can see three different types of honey bees in any honey bee nest.  The first one is the queen (female),  the drone male) and the worker ( female).  Each type of honey bee has its own function to do.  The queen is the mother of all the types of honey bees.  The job of queen is to lay eggs and produce bees.  A queen honey bee can produce around 1,500 eggs per day.    Here are some of the interesting facts about honey bees.

• Honey bees have 6 legs, 2 compound eyes made of thousands of tiny lenses, 3 simple eyes on top of the head and 2 pairs of wings.   They have a nectar pouch and a stomach.
• A group of honey bees in a hive will travel about 90,000 miles to collect 1 Kg. of honey.  This distance is equal to three orbits around the earth.
• A honey bee needs one ounce of honey to fuel its flight around the world.
• A single honey bee hive has around 45,000 to 50,000 bees.
• Honey bees visit around 20 lakhs of flowers to make honey of one pound.
• The temperature inside the bee hive is around 93.5 degrees fahreinheit.
• Honey bee flies at a speed of around 20 to 26 Kilometers per hour.
• The honey bees communicate with each other by dancing.
• Honey bees are not aggressive by nature,  they sting only when their hive is disturbed by others.
• The worker bee does all the work in the hive and live only for 6 to 8 weeks.  The queen bee lives for around 4 to 5 years
• Male honey bees do not have stinger, they do not have any work.
• Only the worker bee stings and they sting only when they feel that their hive is being disturbed.  Once they sting, they die immediately. The queen bee also has a stinger, but it does not come out of the hive to sting or defend the hive.