Honey Bee Trivia

  • Color helps attract bees to flowers. Honeybees like blue, purple and yellow most. They do not like red- it looks black to them. 
  • Honeybees will visit 2500 flowers a day.
  • They will visit between 50-100 per trip out. 
  • A honeybee can carry over half her weight in pollen and nectar.
  • They have to fly 55,000 miles and visit 2 million flowers for nectar to make a pound of honey.
  • The average worker honey bee will make 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
  • A honey bee flies about 15 miles per hour.
  • Theoretically, it would take a honey bee about an ounce of honey to fuel her flight around the world.
  • Bees have been producing honey from flowering plants for 10-20 million years.
  • Honey is nectar that has been repeatedly regurgitated and dehydrated. It is the only food made by an insect that humans eat.
  • Some people are scared of bees. They confuse them with other meaner stinging insects such as yellow jackets.
  • Bees are very gentle.  They usually only sting when threatened.
  • Bees may check you out, but will move on since you are not a source of nectar.
  • In the yard if you don’t want bees around, avoid wearing perfume, Avoid swatting bees, or endangering them. Don’t stand in front of their hive and Don’t wear bright colors
  • A cell of honeycomb has six sides.
  • The average person in the USA  consumes 1.29 pounds of honey a year.
  • Utah is known as the beehive state.
  • A honey bee has 4 wings.
  • There are an estimated 211,600 beekeepers in the United States.
  • The USDA estimates there are 2.44 million honey producing colonies of bees in the United States. This estimate is based on beekeepers who manage five or more colonies.
  • Honey bees communicate with one another by dancing and pheromones.   "Dancing."  Honey bees do a dance which alerts other bees where nectar and pollen was located.  The dance explains direction and distance.
  • Mead is Honey wine
  • Drambuie is a Scottish liquer made with honey.

HELPFUL LINKS:


Helpful starting rescource to get started beekeeping with organic methods (Chemical free): www.beesource.com
Chemical Free Beekeeping using Top Bar Hives: http://www.biobees.com/
NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services: http://www.ncagr.gov/plantindustry/beeboard/
NC State University Apiculture Department: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/
Local Wake County Beekeeping Club: www.wakecountybeekeepers.org
NC State Beekeeping Association: www.ncbeekeepers.org
You Tube Link to Bees fighting Varroa Mite (pest): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGa9DKraGA
You tube video of Survival of the fittest Threat to Honeybees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sQ1swgyddY&feature=related
WHY ARE BEES DISAPPEARING (neonicitinoid chemicals: 60 Minutes video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RZv9BvQJ-A&feature=related
Pesticides linked to Honeybee Deaths: http://www.naturalnews.com/024024.html
Organic Food Production: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/ofp/ofp.shtml
Certified Naturally Grown: http://www.naturallygrown.org