Social Insects: Bees (continued)

Johnny's Fact File No.59 The largest bee is called a mason bee because it builds its nest in stone walls. It has a length of 3,9cm. The smallest bee is stingless and is only 2mm long!

Drones develop in special cells from unfertilized eggs laid by the queen. The young queen may mate with several drones before returning to the hive. The queen takes only one mating flight. She receives enough sperms from the drones to use throughout her life. The sperms are stored in a sac inside her body.

Bees will swarm when the hive becomes overcrowded. The old queen leaves the hive with thousands of workers to search for a suitable place to start a new hive.

The beekeeper waits for a swarm to settle on a branch of a tree. Then he covers the swarm with wood smoke which makes the bees drowsy. The next step is to tap the branch gently so that the bees fall into a cloth sack. This sack is then taken to an empty beehive and placed on the ground just in front of it. The beekeeper puts a plank of wood against the hive, leading up to the entrance. The bees leave the sack and walk up the plank of wood and into their new home.

Johnny's Fact File No.60 A worker bee collects enough nectar in its brief lifetime to make about 45g of honey.

Worker bees protect the entrance to the hive from other bees, spiders and other insects, particularly ants. Each worker bee has a sting which it is only able to use once. The barbs on the sting fix into the enemy so well that when the bee moves away it leaves behind its sting and much of its abdomen. The worker bee only lives for a few hours after it has used its sting.

Worker bees chase the drones out of the hive once the new queen has been fertilized. The drones are not capable of finding their own food and they quickly die. Some worker bees stand at the entrance to the hive and fan their wings. The hive gets hot in the summer, up to 34°C, and the wing-fanning helps send a current of air through it.

Towards the end of their lives, the worker bees leave the hive in search of nectar and pollen. The bee's mouthparts and legs are remarkably adapted for these jobs. 

The mouthparts of each worker are shaped into a honeyspoon with which the bee sucks the nectar from the flower. The nectar is stored in the bee's honey stomach and, once back at the hive, the bee is able to regurgitate the nectar which has been turned into honey. (There is a special part of the bee's digestive system, called the crop, where the nectar is changed into honey.)

The bee's legs are also adapted to help it collect and carry pollen. The first pair of legs each has a notch, called a pollen comb, to clean pollen grains from the antennae. The third pair of legs each has a pollen basket made of stiff hairs. Pollen which has been removed from the body by the two other pairs of legs is stored in these pollen baskets. You can easily see the pollen baskets on a bee's back legs as it moves from flower to flower.

Inside the hive it is dark and the bees communicate by using chemical messages and touch. Their antennae are used in both of these methods of communication. When a bee discovers a good supply of nectar it returns to the hive and dances.

If the food source is less than 100 metres from the hive the worker bee performs a round dance. If the food is more than 100 metres from the hive the dance it performs is called a waggle dance. The other bees surrounding the dancer follow its movements with their antennae. The waggle dance not only tells the other workers how far away the rich supply of nectar is, but also the direction which they should take. The direction is indicated relative to the position of the sun.

Social Insects: Bees: Homepage

• Interdependence of Living Things : Introduction
• Groups which show social behaviour
• Social Insects : Ants
• Social Insects : Termites
• In conclusion
• Chapter Summary (useful for revison)
• Questions relating to this chapter
• Top of Page