Bees

Everyone knows that bees make honey. And although they don’t make it for us, they’re so good at it they’ll typically have quite a surplus on hand, a surplus that a beekeeper can harvest responsibly without hurting the bees. This golden treasure has been relished since antiquity, and remains ubiquitously popular around the world today. … Read more

You don’t have to look very closely at a bee to see that they are some hairy little creatures. They are covered, quite literally, from head to tail in fine, fuzzy hair. They even have hair growing on their eyes! Of course, this hair isn’t merely for decoration: this is special hair, and is designed … Read more

One of the most fascinating, interesting, and useful skills you can take up is beekeeping. Lots of folks engage in the practice for the honey, either for themselves or to sell, but others do it specifically with the purpose of breeding bees or renting out their bees as a pollination service. There’s a surprising amount … Read more

Ask anybody who is unsettled by insects what bothers them the most, and at least some of them are going to answer that it is their creepy eyes. Most insects have eyes that are beady, lifeless-looking, strange, or just too big. It’s enough to give you the willies! But how about our bee friends? How … Read more

Everyone knows that honey is some seriously viscous, sticky stuff. It’s also surprisingly heavy. Ask any beekeeper that’s removing loaded frames from a beehive, and they will tell you they’ve got some heft to them. And this is more than just an interesting piece of trivia to know, because honey is typically sold by weight. … Read more

In a beehive, every bee has a job to do, and every bee has to do its job so that the hive can sustain and prevail. But amidst it all, there’s one bee that’s undoubtedly more important than all the others and that is the queen. The queen bee is responsible for laying countless thousands … Read more

Even though they don’t make it specifically for us, it sure is nice of our bee friends to make a surplus of honey that we can collect. This golden, wonderfully sweet stuff has been coveted and harvested from bees since time immemorial, and today it’s one of the most important and beloved foods around the … Read more

You’ve probably heard the old argument about insects and arthropods, and the number of legs that they have. But then again, there are some radical exceptions in each category. As most of us know, most insects typically have six legs. Most, but not all. How about bees? How many legs do bees have? Bees have … Read more

Pretty much everyone knows by now that bee hives have a queen at the top of the hierarchy. This isn’t exactly true, because bee hives operate more by consensus than they do by royal decree, but the queen bee is still incredibly important. She’s responsible for laying all the successive generations of bees that will … Read more

Pretty much everyone knows by now that bees are among the most important creatures in nature, even though they are some of the tiniest. These are some of the most important pollinators found the world over, and without them, so many of the crops we depend on would basically disappear. But bees, as it turns … Read more

You ever wondered how many eggs a queen bee lays per day? I think it’s a really good question considering the geometric growth that most beehives show. One day you’ve got a few bees flying around and by the end of the week the air is thick with them! That’s great, and we need all … Read more

Bees are some of the most fascinating and important insects in nature. It’s amazing how much work they get done and how organized they are, and all the thousands of bees in a colony, generally follow their queen. The queen bee is a critical figure in any healthy colony, arguably the most important, and the … Read more

Have you ever taken the time to watch a bustling beehive? Did you ever wonder how many bees live inside? They certainly seem countless, and watching these industrious little insects work tirelessly all day long for the good of the hive is a little inspiring, and also a little bit scary. No telling how many … Read more

Bees are among the most amazing builders in nature. Given just a little bit of time, they’ll soon construct a tidy, orderly hive containing hundreds and hundreds of cells used for storing honey and hatching the next generation of bees. They are amazingly adaptible to different environments and different circumstances when they decide to set … Read more

Nature furnishes us many examples of excellence in engineering among the members of the animal kingdom. Beavers change entire ecosystems with their dams. Ants excavate extensive underground colonies. But probably no other construction has captured the imagination like the humble beehive. The geometric symmetry, the purpose, the sheer coordination required to make one; it’s amazing! … Read more

If you’ve ever walked through your lawn or a meadow and been stung by a bee, after you recover from the shock and the pain, you probably wonder why bees sting at all… After all, you’re just walking along minding your own business; you weren’t bothering the bees or trying to steal their honey. Why … Read more