Things you Never Knew About Bees

 So the brain (neuronal cells) unlike most other tissues runs on glucose.  Thinking, memory, and learning are closely linked to glucose (sugar) levels.

Humans evolved around 600,000 years ago in Africa where there was a rapid evolutionary increase in brain size in a relatively short period of time. 

Today there are African tribes who are speciallist honey gatherers. Such as the Hadza who follow birds (called Honeyguides) and 15% of their calories are from honey, i.e. sugar.

It is speculated that around 600,000 years ago our ancesters worked out how to gather honey and diet massively swiched from carbohydrates to sugars. This sudden increase in glucose resulted in the rapid evolutionary development of the human brain.

Also speculated this is why childern crave sweets (glucose for developing brains as the  developing brain uses FAR more glucose vs the adult).

Thanks bees, we'd be chimps wihout you!

Watch a bee. It lands on a flower and feeds. Along comes another bee a bit later. It lands but doesn't bother to try and feed, just flys off again. It knows that flower has been visited and nectaries emptied. How can it tell?

Bees are hairy.  These hairs are used by bees to collect pollen (their  source of protein) which they  comb off and collect into packets on their hind legs.

Flying things (airplanes, insects) shed electrons so become positively charged. So when they (bees) land they are glounded and the landing site (flower petal) becomes positively charged.

When bee number two arrives it can detect that the flower petal is positively charged, it recognises the repulsive force on it's hairs (flower and hairs are both positively charged) so knows the flower has been visited.  So not worth hanging around, someone get there first!

 OK,  individual bees are not warm blooded, but as a "Super Organism" the centre of a bee hive is maintained fairly consistently at ~32-35⁰C, even if it is well below zero outside. How do they manage this? Same as you. They shiver to generate heat and evaporate water (i.e. sweat) to keep cool. 

Some hornets attack bee colonies and can decimate entire hives.  Not all bees fight back by stinging.....

Some Asian bees will lure the scout hornet into their colony. Once they are inside a sort of "Mexican Wave" kicks off and all the bees pile on top of the hornet and start shivering (see above). The heat is directed to the centre of the ball. The hornets heat tolerance is a couple of degrees below that of the bees so it gets.....  COOKED! 

The name "Dumbledore" comes from the old English name for Bumble  Bee (they were also called Humble Bees). I guess good old J K knew her bees.

 Bees can see colours  like us, but their visible spectum is shifted. They can't see red, but they can see yellow green and blue. And to replace red at one end they get to see ultraviolet. Hence they don't tend to see red flowers (unless they have ultraviolet honey guides). So I guess red is for the butterflys!

Bees have two large compound eyes on either side of their heads.

But they have three more little eyes (simple eyes called Ocelli) on the top of their head arranged in a triangle.

The ocelli are not thought to support complex vision, but to work as as an aircraft "artificial horizon", ensuring the bee flys level (not upside down) using sunlight as a referance point.

 In the hive, the Ladies rule. Just  two reasons not to be a male (drone) bee

1. In the Autumn the girls (workers) eject all  the males (literally!) out the hive entrance and they just end up freezing/starving to death.  You can see the girls running round the hive, picking up the males and slinging them out hte door. If they are really unlucky and their "due" (hatch) date is in Autumn the girls might pull them out as larvae and sling them out  before they're even  "born".

2. Sound bad? It gets worse. If a drone does manage to be successful and mate a certain appendage (!) detonates in the process leaving the drone fatally wounded.

The Latin name for Honey Bee is Apis Melifera. If you look on our labels the ingredient "Mel" is in all the bath bombs. Mel is ancient Greek for Honey.  Zeus, king of the Greek Gods was fed honey as a baby by a nymph called........   Melissa. 

And Deborah? Deborah is Hebrew for Bee. (Brings a new perspective to being called "Debbie")

 Queen bees are able to choose the gender of their offspring, and they've been doing it for millions of years. One of the keys to this capability is the Spermotheca, a specialised organ which contains the sperm from the Queens mating flight and will allow the queen to produce tens of thousands of offspring.

The Queen measures the size of the cell (container that holds the  egg/larvae) with her forelegs and a tiny amount of sperm from the spermotheca is mixed with an egg and a fertilised egg is deposited into the cell. This will become a little girl bee (Queen or worker)

If the cell is larger (drone cell), she doesn't mix any sperm with the egg and an unfertilised egg is deposited. This will become a little boy bee (drone).

                                             As surreal as it sounds,  Check it out                                                               Enjoy!

 I will add/change these facts regularly so please check back occasionally.

Finally, I bit of a disclaimer. I have only been keeping bees for a few years and I know there are hundreds of beekeepers in the UK far more experienced than me. So if you are a beekeeper I hope you enjoyed reading these (maybe even learnt something?). If one of the above needs a tweak or maybe you have a favorite fact you would like added, either way please don't hesitate to drop me a message and I'll update the page.