honey bee quick facts

Honey Bee Quick Facts

Class :Insecta

Order :Hymenoptera

Family :Apidae

Names Reproductive female: queen
non-reproductive

female: worker

male: drone

Range :All continents except Antarctica.

Habitat :Open woodland, grasslands, and forests.

Size :Queen: 16 to 20 mm (0.63 to 0.79 in).

Worker: 10 to 15 mm (0.39 to 0.59 in).

Drone: 14 to 18 mm (0.55 to 0.71 in).

Feeding Habits :Honey bees are herbivores; they eat nectar and honey. Larvae eat pollen and royal jelly, which is secreted by worker bees.

Offspring :The queen bee lays all of the eggs for her hive—sometimes more than 1500 a day. The eggs, laid in the cells of the honeycomb, hatch in three days.

Life Span :Queen bees live for one to three years, while workers and drones live for about five weeks.

Did You Know :A healthy bee colony can have as many as 100,000 bees.
Worker bees communicate with a dance, indicating the distance to and direction of a nectar source.
The drone's only function is to mate with the queen.
Worker bees maintain the temperature of the hive by beating their wings.
Only worker bees can produce the wax used to build the hive.