When A Bee Flies Near You, Here’s What You Should Do – Bee Facts That Most People Didn’t Know
While many know bees play a vital role in pollinating flowers, few truly grasp just how remarkable these insects are. For one, bees possess vision far beyond what humans can see. Different bee species are responsible for pollinating as much as 90% of the crops that feed us. Humans have partnered with bees—especially the famous honey bee—for thousands of years, enjoying the benefits of their natural products. Some, like bee venom, even offer medicinal value. Keep reading to discover just how sophisticated bees really are!
Bees Can See Ultraviolet Light
You may have noticed that bees are especially attracted to bright colors, and there's a good reason for that—flowers use vibrant hues to catch their attention. But it gets even more fascinating: bees can see patterns on flowers that are completely invisible to us.
Thanks to their ultraviolet vision, bees detect nectar guides that only appear under UV light. Plus, their color perception processes information five times faster than ours, so even subtle color differences between flowers stand out to them way before we notice.
Making Honey Takes A Lot Of Bees
On average, one bee produces only about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey during its whole lifetime. Considering that a single bee can visit up to 100 flowers on just one trip, that's a surprisingly tiny yield.
Even more remarkable is that bees are the only insects known to create a substance humans actually eat. It’s especially impressive when you think about how much honey is consumed—in the U.S. alone, people enjoy around 2.25 pounds of honey per person each year, according to Sweet Mountain Farm.
Stinging Only Kills Certain Bees
Honey bees fall into three categories: drones, workers, and queens. All worker bees are female, while drones are males whose main role is to mate with the queen. Drones rarely sting, and if they did, it would be lethal—but they usually die right after mating anyway.
Worker bees do sting, but it's a one-way ticket for them—their barbed stingers get lodged in the skin, pulling out part of their abdomen when they try to fly away. Queen bees have smooth stingers, so they can sting multiple times without dying, though they mainly use this ability to fend off rival queens rather than people.
Bees Don't Want To Sting You
Bees generally sting only in self-defense when they feel threatened. If you find yourself near a bee, the best approach is to stay calm and avoid sudden movements.
One of the worst things you can do—and what many people instinctively do—is swat at them. Bees are highly sensitive to motion, so waving your arms around or running will only make them more agitated and increase the chances of a sting. Staying still and composed is your safest bet.
Bee Venom Can Be Used As Medicine
According to Winchester Hospital, bee venom has been used medicinally since ancient times. Although it has been suggested as a treatment for conditions like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, chronic injuries, scar tissue, gout, shingles, burns, and more, there isn't enough solid evidence to fully support these claims.
Research has identified Melittin, the main component of bee venom, as having potential anti-inflammatory effects when used in small doses, as noted in a study published by the scientific journal *Molecules* from MDPI. Administered by healthcare professionals, bee venom injections are sometimes considered a natural alternative treatment option.
Honey Bees Are Relatively New To America
The familiar black and yellow bees are just one species among thousands. Known as the European (or Western) honey bee, they were introduced to North America in 1622, though they didn't reach the West Coast until 1853 and Alaska until 1927.
In the 19th century, beekeeping became more accessible to the public thanks to new inventions that simplified the process. This led to a significant increase in honey production, contributing to the widespread popularity of the honey bee species.
Bees Don't Automatically Know How To Make Honey
Bees are famous for making honey, but they don't start out knowing how to do it. Younger bees learn the process from older, more experienced members of the hive.
Despite this learning curve, a single hive can produce anywhere from 60 to 100 pounds of honey each year. The amount depends largely on the hive’s size, which usually falls between 10,000 and 60,000 bees.
Bees Can Smell Fear
Honey bees have a sense of smell roughly 50 times stronger than that of a dog, due to their 170 odorant receptors. Unlike dogs and humans, these receptors are located in their antennae instead of their noses.
This powerful sense enables bees to detect even the faintest scents while flying, helping them find nearby pollen. They can also sense fear-related pheromones from humans and other animals, which helps them avoid danger.
That Buzz Noise Comes From Their Rapid Wings
Honey bees flap their wings between 200 and 300 times per second, matching the speed of a diving hummingbird. Being smaller, bees can maneuver more nimbly. This fast wing movement produces the buzzing sound we recognize.
The energy for such rapid wingbeats is huge, especially since a hive must travel 55,000 miles to make just one pound of honey. During their brief lifespans, individual bees fly a distance equal to circling the Earth one and a half times.
Colonies Don't Always Stay Together
Swarming usually happens in spring and is how a large bee colony permanently splits. The queen bee leaves, taking most of the original colony with her to start a new hive.
At the same time, a new queen takes charge of the bees left behind in the original colony. This process can repeat several times. Swarming helps bees expand their habitat and increases reproduction, since two separate colonies, each with its own queen, can produce more bees faster.
Honey Bees Take A Break In The Winter
Similar to hibernating animals, a bee hive slows its activity during winter. Some worker bees focus on vibrating inside the hive to keep the temperature steady at about 95 degrees Fahrenheit. With limited outdoor time, bees rush to collect enough pollen and nectar to support the colony.
When flowers aren't blooming, bees can become aggressive. In tough times, some may try to steal nectar from nearby hives. These raids can escalate fast, as invading bees release pheromones that alert and rally their colony to defend or attack.
The Queen Lays A Ton Of Eggs
A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs in a single day. The more eggs she produces, the more worker bees there are to gather food and support the hive. Each egg is tiny—only about half the size of a grain of rice.
It only takes a few seconds for the queen to lay each egg, placing them side by side in a precise pattern. About three days later, the eggs hatch into larvae. These young bees don't have legs, eyes, or wings yet, but they can feed on honey and plant-based liquids.
Honey Bees Have Two Stomachs
Honey bees have a separate stomach used just for storing nectar. This stomach is used to carry the nectar back to the hive. This compartment, referred to by scientists as the crop, can expand to the point that its abdomen swells. Many beekeepers refer to the crop as the honey stomach.
Enzymes in the honey stomach begin to break down the sugars in nectar, preventing crystalization. Once they've returned to the hive, the nectar is passed from bee to bee until the water content has dwindled. The last bee will then regurgitate the transformed nectar into a honeycomb cell.
Bees Require A Ton Of Pollen
Bees become covered in pollen as they visit flowers, which they need to survive as it is the only protein that the insects eat. Therefore, pollen is needed in order to produce honey not because they turn it into honey (that's nectar), but because it feeds and rears workers bees who can make more honey.
Worker bees only live for an average of six weeks. That means that those thousands of eggs the queen lays each day need to be fed so that they can replace the older workers at a rapid rate. For this reason, it takes 10 pounds of pollen to produce one pound of honey.
This Is How Bees Communicate
Bees communicate through dancing and through smell. The honey bee dance is known as the waggle dance. It involves moving in such a way that other bees become aware of the direction and distance to flowers, water, or other members of the colony.
Their sense of smell has everything to do with pheromones. Through odor, a queen bee can communicate whether or not it is time to mate. Worker bees use the odor of flowers to indicate to other bees what they should look for when following the directions of the waggle dance. Lastly, fear pheromones warn others of a threat.
Honey Bees Produce More Than Just Honey
Honey bees produce honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen, and royal jelly. Beeswax is often used in cosmetics and moisturizers. Propolis in a compound that bees gather from trees and use to weatherproof their hives. Humans use it to fight inflammation and certain sores, such as canker sores and burns.
Royal jelly is a substance that honey bees secrete from a gland in their head. It primarily contains water and is made up of proteins, sugar, fats, vitamins, salts, and amino acids. The substance is fed to larvae and is the only thing that a queen bee will eat.
Beekeeping Has Been Around For A Long Time
Cave paintings indicate that bees have been a part of human culture for thousands of years. BBC News reports that the oldest of this kind of evidence dates back 9,000 years. A few thousand years after that, Beeswax was being used by various farmers in Europe and North Africa.
Researchers estimate that the honeybee has been around for 300,000 years and originated in Asia, spreading to Europe and Africa where they were first used for resources. Honey was one of the few sweeteners at the time while beeswax may have been used as a glue and a waterproofing substance.
Not All Cells In The Honeycomb Are Used For Honey
Honeycomb cells are used for the storage of honey, nectar, water, and pollen. In other words, anything that a honey bee gathers is then placed in the comb. This also includes larvae. The honey comb acts as a kind of crib for larvae since they cannot see or fly yet.
Larvae indicate to passing bees in the hive that they are hungry by sticking their tongue out, something human babies also do. When the bee is no longer a larvae, they become a pupae. This is the final stage before they become adults and lasts anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks.
Beekeepers Stay Protected With This Tool
Beekeepers use a device called a smoker when it comes time to harvest the honey produced in a hive. Bees will sting a trespasser who enters their hive, producing a pheromone that alerts the entire colony to attack. The smoker warns the bees that danger is near.
Their response it to fill up with honey in order to prepare to create a new hive. Once they are full of their honey, they won't be as prone to sting for fear that the honey will go to waste when they die. This process gives beekeepers a few minutes of risk-free hive access.
There Are 20,000 Species Of Bee
Though most of us are only familiar with the black and yellow honey bee, they are just one of 20,000 species of bee. Other species vary in size, color, and dance. Several of these other species do not have barbed stingers and therefore can sting endlessly.
In fact, these bee species are so smart that researchers at Plos found that different species can learn to communicate with one another. Despite their intelligence and defenses, many native bees are becoming endangered while the honey bee rises to prominence. However, the honey bee cannot carry the weight of the world's pollination on its own.
