While I was never a huge fan of the TV show Cheers, I did have a certain fondness for the character Cliff Clavin. Cliff had the ability to spew out useless trivia like no one else (well, except for me). Like Cliff, when I stumble upon information I find interesting, I assume that everyone else will find it equally interesting.
So with my best Cliff Clavin voice, here are a few facts you may not (but should) know about honey bees.
- During the summer, a colony of honey bees has a population of 30,000 to 60,000 bees.
- A worker bee (always a female) usually lives a few months (less while large amounts of nectar or pollen are being gathered).
- A single honey bee can produce approximately 1 ½ teaspoons of honey in her lifetime.
- Honey bees can fly 2-3 miles away from a hive to collect nectar.
- To produce a pound of honey, a colony of bees will log approximately 55,000 miles to collect enough nectar.
- If a honey bee could fly around the entire world, she would require only a single ounce of honey for fuel.
- The queen bee can lay her weight in eggs in one 24 hour period.
- A honey bee can only sting once (and then she will die).
- The male bee (called a drone) does not forage. His only purpose is to breed with a virgin queen, and after a successful mating, he dies.
- It takes about 600-800 stings from honey bees to kill a 200 lb. person.
Don’t you feel smarter?
One last thought – Consider the size of a worker honey bee and the relative size of her brain. How is it that her tiny bee brain can create and store a perfect mental map of a 3 mile radius of her colony (18,000 acres)? Not only can she create a map, but she can communicate to other workers via a “waggle dance” the location of a recent food find (both distance and direction).
Sometimes I think we humans aren’t living up to our potential.
Tim, Chuck Terrien here. I found out about your blog from Steve J’s blog.
On an HBO show called Real Time (with comic Bill Maher) they were talking about bees. One tidbit:
Albert Einstein said: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
There is a film out called “Vanishing of the Bees”. One of the data points mentioned on the HBO show that I am pretty sure is discussed in the film is that we are losing 30% of the world’s bee population every year.
Combine that fact and Einstein’s hypothesis and it doesn’t bode well for we humans.
Keep up the great blog!
Regards,
Chuck
Hey Chuck,
Great to hear from you, and thanks for the pointer to the “Vanishing of the Bees.” I will check it out.
…Tim
I do feel smarter just reading your article. thank you very much. We are moving back to Colorado soon and are hoping to get back into bee keeping.
Thanks Julie! Good luck with the bees.