Bee Research By Ms. Kuykendall’s Class 2007

Honeybees and Honey Honeybees make honey so they have food to eat.

Honeybees cannot get nectar in the winter so they must make plenty of honey to survive.

A honeybee can visit up to 10,000 flowers a day to get nectar and pollen. That makes only one teaspoon of honey.

It takes nectar and pollen from one million flowers to make one pound of honey.

Egg The queen bee lays many eggs. This is the first stage of a bee’s life. The worker bee takes 21 days to become an adult. The drone takes 24 and the queen takes 16 days.

Larva The baby bee is very small at this stage. It takes 3 days to become a pupa.

Pupa A pupa is a little white worm. The pupa spins a silky cocoon around itself during this stage.

Adult The drone lives 1 to 2 seasons. Queen bees live 3 to 5 years. The worker lives 3 weeks.

Where do honeybees live?

They live in all parts of the world except the Arctic and Antarctic.

The honeybees live in a colony in a beehive.

60`000 honeybees live in a hive.

What jobs do honeybees have?

Worker Bees/Forager Bees Worker bees build honeycombs, feed the larvae and clean the hive.

Drone Bees The drones mate with the queen bee.

Queen Bees The queen bee lays eggs and is the ruler of the hive.

The Honeymakers

Making Honey First, a bee collects nectar Next it turns the nectar into sweet honey

Finally the honey is put into cells called honeycombs and then a cap of bees wax is put onto the top of the honeycomb. Then a beekeeper comes and puts the honey in jars to sell to people.

Interesting Facts It takes one million flowers to make a pound of honey. The female workers (forager bees) collect the nectar.

The taste and color depends on the nectar.

Honey Bee Communication

Honeybees communicate one way by doing a dance called the round dance which tells the estimate of the distance between the hive and the flowers. Round Dance

Honeybees also have another dance called the waggle dance that they use to say the exact distance between the hive and the flowers. Waggle Dance

Honeybees also smell to communicate. The smell is called pheromone. The worker bees smell this and it tells them if they can get back to work or have to help the queen. Pheromone

How honeybees help flowers and crops

Bees pollinate the same plant for several days. A bee is searching for a blossom.

A honeybee pollinates crops and helps make seeds. Pollen will stick to a honeybee’s body.

The seeds grow and soon become fruit.