Some Interesting Bee Facts

The bees that do all the work (yes you guessed it ladies) are female! The boy bees (drones) laze around the hive eating the honey until a new queen takes to the sky in order to find a mate. Once the queen has been mated, in mid air, the drone then dies and the queen takes a small entourage of worker bees with her to find a suitable hive to build a new colony.

• When a worker bee has found a new source of nectar she returns to the hive and performs a dance called a waggledance which describes to the other bees the location of the new flowers.
• Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the stemites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body)
• Bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacks on their legs. Could the source of this the phrase "the bees knees meaning something good come from this?
• A mated queen doesn't leave her hive unless she is forced out by a new queen. The worker bees will kill and replace a queen who is not laying sufficiently.
• A honey bee will only sting if threatened and once it has stung once it dies (unlike wasps who are able to sting many times.)
• Honey was found in the tomb of the Egyptian King Tutankhamen and as it doesn't degrade over time it should still be edible! Although, if it is kept at a low temperature it may start to crystalise and set but can easily be returned to liquid state by gentle heating.