Honey Bee Facts

This information came from the Glory Bee Catalog, therefore I can't take credit for them.
They are in Eugene, Oregon and have a great catalog, www.glorybee.com.

Bees have 4 wings that beat 11,400 times per minute.

Honey never spoils and there is no need to refrigerate it.

Honey is one of the oldest foods in existence, it was found in King Tut's tomb and was still edible.

It takes 35 pounds of honey to provide enough energy for a small colony to survive the winter. {I believe this varies from state to state depending on how long a winter is}

80% of pollination of fruits, vegetables and seed crops in the US is accomplished by honeybees.

At it's height a typical colony (1 hive) consists of 1 queen {female}, 300 drones {male}, 25,000 older workers, {foragers {non-reproductive females} and 25,000 young workers {non-reproductive females}.

During the honey production period, a bee's life span is only 6 weeks. {Their little wings get tattered on the end from flying so much}

A bee travels an average of 1600 round trips in order to produce one ounce of honey - as far as 6 miles per round trip. To produce 2 pounds of honey, bees travel a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.

Bees fly an average of 13-15 miles per hour.

Bees from the same hive visit approximately 225,000 flowers per day - one bee usually visits between fifty and a thousand flowers per day, but sometimes up to several thousand.

Queens will lay approximately 2,000 eggs per day at a rate of 5 or 6 per minute - between 175,000 and 200,000 eggs are laid per year.

The average temperature of a hive is 93.5 F.

Approximately 8 pounds of honey is eaten by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.

In the course of her lifetime, a worker bee will produce 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.

In a single collecting trip, a worker bee will return to the hive carrying over half her weight in pollen and nectar.

One honeycomb cell in a hive contains approximately .01 oz of honey when full. One honeybee can fill about 15 cells in her short life.

A hive of honey bees must fly over 55.000 miles to bring in one pound of honey.

To make one pound of honey, honey bees must gather 10 pound of nectar.

It would take about one ounce (2 tablespoons) of honey to fuel a honey bee's flight around the world.

Honeybees communicate through a series of "dances" and use the sun as a reference point to communicate to other bees the angle of flight to be followed to arrive at newly discovered nectar-bearing flowers.

EXTRA INFO: Got this information from granny, it's the field bees leaving the hive that will sting you not the field bees returning to the hive.

Ya'll bee sweet.