Hello my fellow curious critters and welcome back to The Friendly Neighborhood Shark Lady! I don’t know about you guys, but all of this snow, ice, and generally nasty winter weather has me a bit down in the dumps. I miss being able to walk outside and not have the air hurt my face. I decided that this week I want to think about spring so I don’t forget that happiness exists. One of the images that always pops into my mind when I think of spring is honey bees buzzing around in a field of wildflowers, so today we are learning about honey bees!
Honey bees are extremely important to our global ecosystem. They are pollinators, meaning they help transport pollen from the female part of a flower to the male part which allows the plant to produce seeds. They pollinate plants by picking up bits of pollen while they visit the plant's flower for food, usually nectar (a sugary liquid produced by the flower) or the pollen itself, and then depositing that pollen on the next flower they visit. Around 75% of the world’s flowering plants and 35% of the world’s food crops depend on honey bees, among other animals, for pollination. Without them, entire ecosystems would be at risk of collapsing.
Now that we know a little bit about why honey bees are important, let’s dive in and learn all about them! Honey bees are social animals that live in colonies or hives. There are three distinct types of honey bees found in each colony. First, you have the queen bee. The queen bee basically runs the entire hive. She is the only reproductive female and is responsible for laying eggs and secreting chemicals that regulate the behavior of the other bees. During peak egg-laying season in the spring and summer, a queen bee can lay up to 2,500 eggs a day! There is usually only one queen bee per colony and she can live for up to 5 years. When she dies, the worker bees, which we will be learning about next, will feed one of the bee larvae royal jelly, a special food only eaten by the queen bee, which will allow that larva to develop into a fertile female.
When you think about honey bees, you most likely are thinking about the worker bees because they are the ones we usually see. Worker bees are the smallest of the three kinds of bees and by far the most numerous. They typically only live for around 5-6 weeks, but worker bees sure do get a lot done in that time. Worker bees are responsible for producing beeswax and forming it into honeycombs, foraging for nectar and pollen, transforming that nectar and pollen into honey, producing royal jelly, taking care of the queen bee and her larvae, removing debris and dead bees from the hive, and defending the hive from invaders.
The final type of bee found in a colony are drones. Drones are male honey bees that develop from unfertilized eggs (fertilized eggs develop into female worker bees). A drone’s only purpose is to fertilize the queen bee’s eggs. They do not forage for pollen or nectar, they don’t produce any beeswax, and they don’t help take care of the queen bee, her larvae, or the hive. Drones are only present in the hive during the spring and summer months. Once the temperatures start to drop and the colony prepares to go into survival mode for the coming winter, they are booted from the hive.
Now, one of my favorite things about honey bees is their form of communication. In order to give each other a heads up about where the best food source is they perform something called the “waggle dance”. During the waggle dance, a bee that is returning from the flower patch will waggle back and forth as she walks in a straight line and then circles around to perform the dance again. How far she walks in a straight line, also called the waggle run, indicates roughly how far away the food source is. They will perform their waggle dance at a specific angle to indicate the direction from the hive the food source is. Sometimes, bees will also perform something called a “round dance”. The round dance only indicates that the food source is somewhere close to the hive, it does not give any specific direction.
Taste and smell are also really important in bee communication and foraging. Honey bees have over 170 scent receptors, so they have a wicked sense of smell. Like I mentioned earlier, the queen bee will release chemicals that influence the behavior of the entire colony. Returning worker bees will also smell of the food source they just visited and will often give other worker bees a small taste of the nectar from that source. This, along with their dancing, makes it much easier for them to find the same awesome food source and decreases the amount of time and energy used trying to find food.
Unfortunately, over the past 15 years or so we have seen a drastic decrease in our honey bee populations. Termed “colony collapse disorder”, billions of bees have been leaving their hives never to return. In some areas of the world, up to 90% of the local bee populations have disappeared. Scientists aren’t entirely sure what is causing this to happen, but they are working very hard to find the cause and a solution. While we may not understand the full picture yet, there are some things you can do to help your local bee populations. The biggest thing you can do is plant a pollinator garden! Not only will this help out your local bee population, it will help out other pollinators as well, like butterflies. Just make sure you are planting species native to your area. Those are the plants that will help your local populations the most and help prevent the spread of invasive species.
Thank you so much for coming and learning with me today! I really enjoyed spending an afternoon learning about honey bees. I was almost able to forget it was still winter for a while. Just remember, only 34 more days until spring and counting! The sun will shine on us, and our friends the honey bees, again soon. I’ll see you all back here for more fun science next time!
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