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Honey Bee
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Description
- Male drone 5/8" (15-17 mm); queen 3/4" (18-20 mm)
- Sterile female worker 3/8-5/8" (10-15 mm)
- Drone more robust
with largest compound eyes
- Queen elongate with smallest
compound eyes and larger abdomen
- Worker smallest
- All
mostly reddish brown and black with paler, usually orange-yellow
rings on abdomen
- Head, antennae, legs almost black
with short, pale erect hair densest on thorax, least
on abdomen
- Wings translucent
- Pollen basket on hind tibia
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Warning
- This bee stings but is not aggressive;
if stung, remove stinger immediately. Aggressive Africanized
Honey Bees ("killer bees") have been moving northward
in North America and are much more dangerous than the
domestic variety.
- Food Adult drinks nectar and eats honey.
- Larva feeds on honey
and royal jelly, a white paste secreted by workers.
- Life Cycle Complex social behavior centers on maintaining queen for full lifespan, usually 2 or 3 years, sometimes up to 5.
- Queen lays eggs at intervals, producing a colony of 60,000-80,000 workers, which collect, produce, and distribute honey and maintain hive.
- Workers feed royal jelly to queen continuously and to all larvae for first 3 days; then only queen larvae continue eating royal jelly while other larvae are fed bee bread, a mixture of honey and pollen.
- By passing food mixed with saliva to one another, members of hive have chemical bond.
- New queens are produced in late spring and early summer
- Old queen then departs with a swarm of workers to found new colony.
- About a day later the first new queen emerges, kills other new queens, and sets out for a few days of orientation flights.
- In 3-16 days queen again leaves hive to mate, sometimes mating with several drones before returning to hive.
- Drones die after mating
- Unmated drones are denied food and die.
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Habitat
- Hives in hollow trees and hives kept by beekeepers. Workers
visit flowers of many kinds in meadows, open woods, and gardens.
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Range
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Worldwide.
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Settlers brought the Honey Bee to North America in the 17th century.
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Today these bees are used to pollinate crops and produce honey.
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They are frequently seen swarming around tree limbs.
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Honey Bees are distinguished from bumble bees and bees in other families mostly by wing venation.
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Proudly serving the area since 1993
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