The share of bees in pollinating insect-pollinated plants is 60-90%. Bumblebees pollinate 10-15% of the flowers and the remaining part is pollinated by solitary bees, wasps, flies and some beetles.
In search of nectar flow, the bee penetrates an area within a radius of 3-4 km around the hive. However, effective nectar and pollen collection takes place up to 2 km from the apiary.
One bee brings 40-50 mg of nectar at a time in the honey crop (itself weighs about 110 mg). The further it flies to forage, the less it brings the nectar flow back to the hive. At a distance of 3 km, self-consumption reaches 70% of the initial load weight. This is why apiaries are placed as close to useful plants as possible.
When consuming 1 kg of honey, bees release approximately 1,450 g of carbon dioxide and 500 g of water in the form of steam. Therefore, if a bee colony consumes, for example, 8 kg of supplies during the winter, it is necessary to remove about 12 kg of carbon dioxide and about 4 kg of water from the hive.
Sociologists’ findings show that beekeepers and members of beekeepers’ families predominate among people over 100 years old.
Regular consumption of honey promotes the accumulation of significant amounts of glycogen in human muscle tissues, which determines the ability to undertake longer periods of exercise.
Drones, being cosmopolitan by nature, do not recognize any kinship relationships and can freely enter any hive without being disturbed as if it were their own (also in neighboring apiaries).
Bees collect from 60% to 85% of pollen between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. The maximum daily harvest of 1 bee family is 400-500 g. On 2-3 combs in a bee family there should be from 1.5 to 2.5 kg of bee bread.
The honey bee distinguishes the exact concentration of sugar in solutions. A solution containing less than 5% sugar is indistinguishable from plain water and therefore does not constitute a carbohydrate forage for the bees. Caucasian bees collect nectar with a lower sugar content and therefore make better use of its resources in nature.
A worker bee visits 100 to 150 flowers in one flight.
The queen bee lives 50-60 times longer than the worker bees.
At a temperature of 8-13°C, honey crystallizes faster than at a temperature of 20-25°C. In dark combs, honey crystallizes several times faster than in light combs.
The proof that one-day-old bee and queen larvae are fed with different milk is the fact that a worker bee cannot be raised from a one-day-old larva transferred from the queen bee to the bee cell.
Fresh nectar contains 24-97% water, while nectar collected from honey crops returning to the hive contains 60-80% water. Within 3-4 days after depositing nectar in the cells of the comb, the bees reduce the amount of water contained in it to 18%.
Good pollination of 1 ha of various crops requires a certain number of bee families: red clover – 3-5, sunflower – 1-2, white clover, rapeseed, mustard, buckwheat – 2-3, sour cherries, sweet cherries and plums – 3-4.
To calculate the number of young bees that will emerge from a reddened comb, it is assumed that there are 400 bee cells or 260 drone cells on one side of 1 dm2 of the comb.
From the moment the egg is laid until the cel is sealed, each larva is visited by nurse bees about 10,000 times.
Young workers clean the comb cells in the honey bee’s nest for about 3 days from the moment they break out.
Bee larvae are fed by young workers in the hive, aged 4-13 days. For the first 3 days, they produce milk that feeds the younger larvae. In the following days, they feed the older larvae, which are fed with a mixture of bee bread and diluted honey.
The function of guard bees is performed by worker bees from the group of flight bees at the age of 10-16 days, i.e. before they start working on collecting nectar and pollen. Guard bees allow all foragers returning with honey flow (even if they come from foreign colonies) to enter the hive without any problems.
Mating flights are undertaken by young mother bees as a result of their sex drive, which appears around the fifth day of life. The mother’s sex drive ceases after she is inseminated, and when she is not inseminated – around the 30th day of life.
Nowadays, there are 25-30 thousand very diverse species of bees. Their common feature is, among others: feeding on pollen and flower nectar.
To collect the nectar needed to produce 1 kg of honey, bees must visit approximately 4 million flowers. One worker bee flies approximately 7,000 times a day. flowers. Bees secreting 1 kg of wax consume 3.5-4 kg of honey. The beekeeper’s measures to prevent the bees from building new combs do not limit the amount of honey they consume, and the wax secreted is irretrievably lost.
The flight speed of the worker bee is adjusted to the needs. Without a load, a bee flies at a speed of up to 65 km/h, while carrying a load of pollen and nectar only at a speed of 20-30 km/h. In families preparing for swarming, just a few days before the swarm leaves, „quartermasters” appear – workers looking for a new „apartment” for the future family.
The above information was taken from the magazine „PSZCZELARSTWO” 1991/1992.