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eliochel
Jan 17, 20231 min read
From where do the bees get propolis?
The workers forage to collect plant resins, bring it back to the hive and mix it with wax and possibly with their saliva.
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eliochel
Jan 16, 20231 min read
What two things do workers carry on their hind pair of legs?
Pollen and propolis.
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eliochel
Jan 15, 20231 min read
What are the distinctive and well-known structures on the bee’s largest pair of legs?
The corbiculae (singular: corbicula), often called pollen baskets.
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eliochel
Jan 15, 20231 min read
What special structure is found on the middle pair of a worker’s legs?
The 2nd pair of legs have tibial spurs. Those are used to pierce the wax flakes produced by the wax glands (on the abdomen) and pass them...
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eliochel
Jan 15, 20231 min read
What special anatomical structures do the worker bee's front pair of legs have?
A worker uses her front pair of legs for many tasks but the front legs are specially designed to clean her antennae with bristles in a...
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eliochel
Jan 15, 20231 min read
How do 6 legs give a bee more stability and functionality than just 4 would give?
At any time moving around the hive at any angle, including completely upside down, the bee has a minimum of 3 legs in contact with a...
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eliochel
Jan 10, 20231 min read
What parts of the honey bee leg have the same names as parts of the human leg?
Humans and bees both have jointed legs, and some of the parts making mobility possible share names in both species: femur, tibia, tarsus...
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eliochel
Jan 10, 20231 min read
"Mother of the hive" better describes a queen bee's role in her hive.
Although in English we call her the queen, she does not play the role of a traditional monarch, and many languages call her "mother."...
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eliochel
Jan 8, 20231 min read
Any female honey bee egg could become queen but almost all become workers. Why?
“You are what you eat.” The worker bees nursing the female larvae decide what diet to feed each larvae from the time the egg hatches. The...
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eliochel
Jan 8, 20231 min read
Is honey really bee “barf”?
No, when bees carry nectar or honey, it travels down their esophagus to the honey crop (stomach) where the proventriculus prevents it...
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eliochel
Jan 8, 20231 min read
Drones have a longer "egg to adult" development time than workers. How much more time?
Drones need more time to get so much larger than workers. To attain this growth, they get an extra 3 days to develop as pupae, for a...
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eliochel
Jan 7, 20231 min read
If the worker bee weighs on average about 121 mg, how many mg do you guess a queen weighs?
So, we know that queens are the largest caste of bees in the hive, although some drones are larger than some queens. Per The Beekeeper’s...
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eliochel
Jan 7, 20232 min read
How much does difference in weight does a drop of rain on a worker bee make? Can they fly in rain?
So what’s the weight of a raindrop? We in Western Washington (geographical base of the SnoKing Beekeepers Assn.) know that drops of...
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eliochel
Jan 7, 20231 min read
We buy package bees by the pound, about 3,500 per pound. How much does a single worker bee weigh?
Clearly pounds and ounces aren't going to work, so we have to go metric. A single bee weighs 121 mg, about 1/10 of a gram.
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eliochel
Jan 7, 20231 min read
What color can bees see that humans can not see? Why is this important?
UV, because bees can locate the sun even through the clouds on an overcast day and use that for navigation. Also, because flowers that...
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eliochel
Jan 3, 20231 min read
How many eyes does a bee have? Warning: this is a trick question!
2 compound eyes, 3 simple eyes (ocelli), but each of the compound eyes has 1000s of ommatidia. According to "Honeymaker: How the Honey...
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eliochel
Dec 31, 20221 min read
The friendly bee story:
A man is driving down the road and runs out of gas. Then, a friendly bee flies in the window. The bee says, 'What seems to be the...
43 views
eliochel
Dec 30, 20221 min read
Two beekeepers are talking:
#1 says "that’s a bee." #2 says "no, it’s not, that’s an idiot." #1 gives in and says "You are right. That’s an idiot." Then both...
30 views
eliochel
Dec 29, 20221 min read
Yet another beekeeping story:
A doctor tells a woman she has only half a year to live. "Oh, doctor, what should I do?" she asks. The doctor advises her to marry a...
24 views
eliochel
Dec 28, 20221 min read
A story about a bee's first day of school:
It’s the first day of bee kindergarten. The bees are all buzzing. Teacher : Be silent!!!!! What’s your name? Bee : eee
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