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Facts about bees

Pollination


Agriculture depends greatly on the honeybee for pollination. Honeybees account for 80% of all insect pollination. Without such pollination, we would see a significant decrease in the yield of fruits and vegetables.

Bee Navigation

Each honeybee hive produces about 29 kg of honey per year. To help them make this honey, the bees talk to each other - and just recently, some scientists have learnt to speak this language!

Hive Temperature

Variations in hive temperature during development can have a lasting effect on honey bees' communication and learning abilities, according to new research in PNAS. Bees keep hive temperatures consistently between 33 and 36 degrees Celsius, compensating for heat by bringing in water and for cold by vigorously contracting their muscles.

The Amazing Bee

Beehives and bees were popular for coats of arms and often chosen by English business houses and towns to signify industry as the basis of their development and prosperity. Rudyard Kipling wrote:

Drones

The constant exchange of food and pheromones (scents) between bees keeps the hive functioning smoothly. As their name implies, workers do most of the work in the hive, such as depositing nectar into the honey cells. The nectar ripens into honey in a few days, after which the cell is capped. Drones (which can be distinguished from workers by their larger size and enormous eyes) get free board and meals. Their main contribution to hive life is to mate with the queen, an event which happens only once in each queens life.

Bees as Indicators of Environment Quality

There have been suggestions over the years to use bees as indications of environmental quality. Most recently, May 3 2004, the Council of State Governments and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) convened a meeting to determine if bees can be useful indicators of ecosystem conditions. The Environmental Monitoring Assessment Program (EMAP) is well established in but their key species are fish, frogs and aquatic organisms. The question is can honeybees provide the necessary qualities needed for an indicator species. Dr Jerry Bromenshenk, research professor with the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana, believes that bees are an ideal species for detecting environmental problems.

Commercial suburban beekeeping in Manukau and Auckland

A landscape of volcanic craters, old suburbs, frost free micro climates and the people do keep city beekeeping interesting. Endless tree and flower species thrive here with useful new weeds arriving periodically including tall mangroves, inhabiting our many tidal inlets and moth plant.