HONEY BEE FACTS

The honey bee is an elegant blend of aesthetics and functionality. Nearly every aspect of a honey bee's body is adapted for its role as a pollinator.

  • Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their central brood nest regardless of whether the outside temperature is 110 or -40 degrees.
  • The population of a colony will fluctuate during the year according to the honey flow and nectar sources available, and will vary from 20,000 to 60,000 bees.  The low and high numbers occur in the winter and summer months, respectively.      
  • Honey bees produce beeswax from eight paired glands on the underside of their abdomen.
  • Honey bees can fly 2-5 miles from their hive to forage on flowers.
  • Honey bees are entirely herbivorous when they forage for nectar and pollen but can cannibalize their own brood when stressed.
  • Honey bees are almost the only bees with hairy compound eyes.
  • The brain of a worker honey bee is about a cubic millimeter but has the densest neuropile tissue of any animal.
  • Honey bees fly at 15 miles per hour.
  • Honey has been used for millenia as a topical dressing for wounds since microbes cannot live in it.  Honey has even been used to embalm bodies such as that of Alexander the Great.
  • Fermented honey, known as Mead, is one of the most ancient fermented beverages. The term "honey moon" originated with the Norse practice of consuming large quantities of Mead during the first month of a marriage.
  • Bees cannot see the color red. But they do see a color we can’t: ultraviolet (UV). UV is what gives us a sunburn. But to a bee, it’s a whole different color. Since bees can’t see red, red flowers are pollinated in other ways, by bats, butterflies, birds, or the wind. Flowers that want to attract bees have colors that bees can see, or have patterning visible with UV light that attracts the bees' attention (such as a target or bulls' eye). Often, white flowers, which look plain to us, actually reflect UV light, so they look very attractive to the bees.
  • It would take about 1 ounce of honey to fuel a honeybee's flight around the world.   
  • The Honeybee is the only insect that produces food for humans.
  • A single honeybee will only produce approximately 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
  • Approximately 7-8 pounds of honey are consumed by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.
  • Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
  • Honey never spoils.
  • Honeybees travel over 55,000 miles and visits approx. 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
  • A honeybee will flap its wings about 11,400 times per minute creating the "buzz" that you hear.
  • Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers.