- CHARACTERISTICS
- There are three castes in the colony:
Queen: is the only fertile bee and lays all the eggs for the others. Its life expectancy is 3 years and it only abandons the hive to set up another one or for the nuptial flights, during which she reproduces.
Workers: Infertile females. They are in charge of secreting the wax, gathering the pollen, feeding the larvae...
Drones: Are the male bees, their only function is to fertilise the new queen and once this has been done they die. They have no stinger.
- DIET
- Both workers and queen bee feed on royal jelly during the first three days of the larval state. Thereafter the workers change to a diet of pollen and nectar or diluted honey, while those larvae chosen to be queen bees continue to receive royal jelly.cibiendo jalea real.
- REPRODUCTION
- The queen, when becoming an adult bee, leaves the hive and begins to secrete pheromones which are followed by the males from other hives, thereby being able to mate with up to 15 different males.
Copulation takes place in the air, while they continue flying, in the nuptial flight.
The queen has a spermatheca, it stores the sperm which will be used later to fertilise the new bees.
- CURIOSITIES
- The bees make hexagonal cells which do not permit holes and which obstruct the appearance of bacteria. The hexagon is used (as opposed to squares or triangles) as with the same surface area it has a smaller perimeter.
Bees have been used for many, many years (around 10.000) for obtaining honey. Apiculture also produces beeswax, royal jelly, propolis (a potent bactericide) and bee venom (for therapeutic purposes).
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- NAME
- Honey Bee
- HABITAT
- Cosmopolitan
- SCIENTIFIC NAME
- Apis mellifera
- SPICE
- Insects
- DIET
- Nectar
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