The Bee
Facts
One of the popular insects around the world that possessed the ability to produce honey that is very beneficial to people which are used for food and medicinal purposes is non-other, the bee.
Their order belongs to its Latin name Hymenoptera. There are up to 25,000 species of bees around the world. Bees are known to produce honey and are one responsible for transmitting pollen among plants that cause cross-pollination.
Cross-pollination is known to increase the number of variations between offsprings of plants. There are some insects that look like the bee, like the drone or hover flies, some species of wasps, beetles like painted locust borers, and moths like clear-winged sphinx moths.
If you look at them from far away they will look like bee but if you get near to them their true identity will manifest.
However, the distinction of bee among these look-alikes is that it has brown or black color with yellow stripes. The bee colony has consisted of three categories: the queen bee, drone or male bee and the worker bee.
Queen Bee
This is the only bee in the colony that gives birth. This adult bee can give birth to almost 2,000 a day.
But when this queen bee turn to its old age her ability to give birth will deteriorate that will make her less organized in egg laying pattern.
So, failure to exercise her role as a queen will be the tendency of the worker bees to induce her replacement or in other term called supersedure.
The sad truth is that worker bees will kill the queen when supersedure occurs. After this, the workers will seek for a new queen from the larvae and nourish it until become capable of giving birth.
Drone or Male Bee
The drone bee is characterized by its physical appearance of having huge eyes which is double in size compared to the queen and the worker bees.
This type of bee does not gather pollen nor nectar from plants, they have no stinger also but has mandibles to use against their predators.
They have exclusive purpose of mating with the queen for the expansion of the colony. Drone need to fly fast to compete with the queen in the mid-flight.
After mating for 7 to 10 times they die, the same thing when they are ejected from the hive during winter by the workers.
Worker Bee
The worker bees build and clean the nest, protects the queen, the eggs and provide food for the whole colony. These sterile female bees do not lay eggs.
According to their purpose of protecting the nest against predators, they use stinger called ovipositor that contains venom.
They sting when they are upset, their victim will feel hot and itchy for about 2-3 days on the specific spot of the skin. However, when it talks about lifespan, they live for a short period of time.
Unlike the queen which has a normal 3 years and sometimes 5 years, worker bees just live for mere six weeks because of overwork.
They do not miss any chance of doing their job for the good and benefit of the colony.
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