Bees: What You Might Not Know

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There are about 15,000 to 20,000 different kinds of bees. Who knew? The strange part is that 95% of these bees are “solitary” bees that live alone. Only 5% are “social bees” that live in colonies, sometimes containing thousands of bees. The most “social” bee, you might have already guessed, is the Honey Bee. They live cooperatively in hives and have individual jobs they perform. There is the QUEEN Bee, a huge female who lays all the eggs. I learned from a bee keeper that the Queen begins to lay her eggs in the early Spring during the first warm days and then she continues to lay eggs every day until the end of summer. Who knew? She starts with just a few eggs per day and then at the end of summer, will lay up to 2000 eggs every day. The average Queen Bee lives about five years and during that time could lay around one million eggs. The drones have one job and that is to fertilize the eggs. The worker bees do all the work in the hive, maintaining and keeping everything running smoothly. I have more about the bees. Find out what happens inside the hive. It’s a fascinating study. Honey bees are being threatened. Albert Einstein said that if honey bees disappear, the world will only last about four more years. That's something to think about.