The Buzz-Worthy Science of Bees

Honeybees are responsible for pollinating 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S—and they do it by accident! When a bee lands on a flower, its feet slip into little grooves that hold pollen sacs. When the bee flies away, it carries the sac to other flowers, and when it lands, pollen falls out of the sacs on its feet.

Bees make honey so that they have food stores for the hive during the long months of winter when flowers aren’t blooming. When flowers don’t bloom, the bees have no nectar, so instead they eat the honey that they made during the spring and summer months.

Honeybees will usually travel approximately 3 miles from their hive to find flowers. That’s the length of 40 soccer fields!

To make one pound of honey, the bees in the colony must visit 2 million flowers!

Honeybees fly at 15 miles per hour—faster than a human can run! They also flap their wings up to 11,400 times per minute. This is why bees make a “buzz” sound: the buzz comes from bees flapping their wings!

One beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year. That’s as much as a Gorilla weighs!

It would take about 1 ounce of honey to fuel a honeybee’s flight around the world. That’s just one spoonful!

Flowers and other blossoming plants produce a sugary nectar that worker bees suck up and store in a special honey stomach. When the stomach is full, the bee returns to the hive and puts the nectar in a honeycomb, which is a perfect hexagon. The bees then use chemicals from special glands in their head to evaporate water from the nectar and change it into honey. It’s a lot of work—which is why honeybees never sleep!

Every beehive has a Queen Bee. The Queen may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day. There are three types of bees in the hive – the Queen, the Workers, and the Drones. Drones are the only male bees.

Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water—and Honey never goes bad! Once, scientists found a pot of honey in an ancient Egyptian tomb, and they could still eat it!