|
Tag: Bees
Who Lives In A Bee Colony?
Who Lives In A Bee Colony?
A beehive is inhabited by a colony of up to 80,000 honeybees. From a distance, all bees look alike. Take a closer look and you’ll see three distinct types of bees in a beehive: The queen: There is just one queen in a hive. The queen is the largest bee and the only female with fully developed ovaries; her job is to lay eggs – up to 1,500 per day. Her health is the key to a strong and productive hive. Workers: Workers are sexually undeveloped females and cannot mate (if the colony loses its queen, workers can lay eggs, but their offspring are drones). Their role is to collect food and water for the colony, care for the larva, and guard the hive against intruders. There are about 60,000 workers in a colony. Drones: The only males in the hive, drones mate with the queen to maintain the population of the colony. Drones do not work and do not have stingers. The number of drones in a colony varies with the season; the population is higher in the spring/summer, but they are kicked out at the end of the season when it’s harder to obtain food. |
The Native Bees of America
Native bees are an unappreciated treasure, with 4,000 species from tiny Perdita to large carpenter bees, they can be found anywhere in North America where flowers bloom.
Most people don’t realize that there were no honey bees in America until the white settlers brought hives from Europe. These resourceful insects promptly managed to escape domestication, forming swarms and setting up housekeeping in hollow trees, other cavities or even exposed to the elements just as they had been doing in their native lands.
Native pollinators, in particular bees, had been doing all the pollination in this continent before the arrival of that import from the Old World. They continue to do a great deal of it, especially when it comes to native plants.
Load More