Bee Facts

Some random bee and honey facts you might find interesting

• A bee produces about a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime
• Honeybees never sleep
• A bee travels the equivalent of three times around the world to produce one kilo of honey
• Bees can fly up to 25 kilometres per hour and beat their wings 11400 times per minute
• Bees communicate with each other with a “waggle dance” - this gives the other bees information about where nectar can be found
• Bees have five eyes. The two biggest compound eyes are hairy
• Honey bees collect pollen in so-called pollen baskets on the back of their legs. When you next watch a bee that is collecting pollen, look out for the little yellow, orange or white blobs on their back legs
• Bees can see ultraviolet light but they cannot see the colour red.
• Bees have two stomachs – one ordinary one and one to transport the nectar
• Bees have an enormous sense of smell – they have even been trained to smell explosives
• A good queen bee can lay at least 2000 eggs per day
• A bee will visit 50 to 100 flowers per flight when collecting nectar
• Fossils of honey bees date back about 150 million years
• Cave paintings in Spain from 7000BC show the earliest records of beekeeping
• Honey was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt – it was still edible
• The first “domesticated” beehive likely traces back to the Egyptians. The earliest apiarists made hives from old logs or tree trunks to mimic the homes of wild swarms. 
• Honey bees were introduced to New Zealand in 1839 by Mary Brumby, the sister of an English missionary