Transcript Honey Bee Anatomy & Biology

Honey Bee
Apis mellifera
Anatomy & Biology
The Wonderful Life of Bees
Bees are insects as they have 6 legs.
There are two types of bees
• The Bumble Bee & The Honey Bee.
• The Bumble Bee is larger and rounder than other
bees. It has a thick furry coat which allows it to fly in
colder weather. It is the first bee to be seen in Spring.
The buzzing sound you hear from a bee is made when
it flaps it wings. The bumblebee beats it wings 200
times every second to stay in the air.
Bumble Bee
Honey Bee
Honey Bees
Honey Bees live in large groups call colonies.
 The biggest bee is the Queen. She is the mother of every
bee in the colony. The Queen lays eggs – up to 2000 eggs
a day.
The female bees are the Workers. They look for food,
build honeycombs, protect the hive. If the hive gets too
hot they fan in cool air with their wings.
Some workers take care of the Queen by feeding,
cleaning and clearing up after her.
Workers, Drones, & Queen
Drones
The third group are the male bees. They are called drones. They have large
eyes. There are several hundred in each hive and their job is to mate with
the Queen.
During the winter the drones die as they would use up the store of honey
needed to keep the Queen alive in the winter.
Worker Bees (Are all Female)
• Worker Bee Life Cycle
– Hatching of egg: 3 Days
– Larva stage (Feeding): 5 days
– Pupa stage: 13 days
– From Egg to Adult: 21 days
Queen
• Mature female that received abundant
amounts of royal jelly while as larva
• Can live 2 – 4 years
• Can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day during
spring build up.
Honey Bee External Anatomy
A honey bee has 5 eyes – three are at the top of the head and two at the side. A
bee sees colour and shape, it doesn't see slow moving objects well. Fast jerky
movements will attract the bees attention.
The antennae are used for smelling and are sensitive to changes in odour. The
mouth has two mandibles which act like teeth. The bee uses them to make wax
and to bite.
• Three Body Regions
– Head, Thorax, and Abdomen
The Life cycle of the Bee
The Queen bee lays up to 2000 eggs a day, one egg in each cell. The eggs look
like a small grain of rice. After 3 days it hatches into a larva. Worker bees
feed the larva with a food called royal jelly.
The larva grows bigger and curls into a C shape to fit into its cell. After 6 days
the larva straightens out and stops eating. When the worker bees see this,
they cover the cell with wax.
Over the next 12 days the larva emerges into a pupa, it eats its way through
the cell cap and emerges as a honey bee. For a worker bee this takes 21
days, Drone ->24 days, Queen -> 15days.
How Bees make Honey
Bees make honey as food for their colony.
Worker bees fly out from the hive in search of flowers rich in nectar. Using the
proboscis which looks like a straw a worker bee drinks the liquid nectar and
stores it in a special stomach called the honey stomach.
The bee will visit hundreds of flowers until its honey stomach is full.
Inside the honey stomach, enzymes break down the sugars of the nectar into
simpler sugars.
Back in the hive the honey bee regurgitates the nectar into a cell of the
honeycomb.
Next the bee beats its wings furiously to allow the water evaporate from the
nectar, as the water evaporates the sugars thicken in to honey.
Finally the bee caps the bees wax cell sealing the honey into the honeycomb. A
single bee will only produce 1/12 th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
Abdomen
• Spiracles for Breathing
• Stinger/Ovipositor (Workers & Queen)
• Male Bees (Drones) do not have a stinger
The Hive
Flowers that attract honey bees
Plant blue & yellow flowers as bees can easily see these colours
Leave one area of lawn uncut in Summer to allow Clover and birds foot trefoil to flower.
Plant a wildflower meadow.
Plant a flowering hedge e.g.Hawthorn.
Create a nest house for bees e.g. insect hotel, upturned plant pot beneath a garden
...shed.
Bamboo canes are ideal for nesting too.
How Bees Communicate
• Bees tell each other things by moving their bodies and making
smells.
• When a bumblebee feeds on a flower, it leaves a smell so
other bees from its nest can find it.
• When worker bees return to the hive they perform a dance to
let other bees know where the best source of nectar can be
found. A round dance communicates that the food is near the
hive. The waggle dance or figure of 8 communicates that the
food is some distance away.
• When a bee stings an intruder e.g. wast it makes a smell.
This warns other bees that the colony is in danger.
• The young larvae and pupae release a special smell
so that the worker bees can tell its feeding needs and
stages of development.
Save the Bees! How ?
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Why Bees are in Decline
Bees are important to us as one third of the food we eat would not be available
but for bees.
Bees visit more than two thousand flowers each day.
Each time a bee lands on a flower, pollen sticks to the hairs on its body.
When the bee flies to another flower, some pollen brushes off the bee and this
helps the plant to make seeds.
Bees are in danger of disappearing from our environment because of the use of
pesticides.
Varroa mite – honey bee.
Changes in farming methods.
Destruction of habitat.
Air Pollution.
Global Warming & Drought.
Swarming
Eventually, the worker bees decide that
 The queen has become too old or damaged
 Or that the hive is physically too small
So… They decide to make a new queen(s)……..