Animals trivia | 40 facts about the bees

Bees are considered some of the most exciting, and hard-working animals. But how many things do you know about them?

If not so much, then keep on reading!

1. Bees are flying insects.
2. They are closely related to wasps and ants.
3. They are known for their role in pollination.
4. In the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey.
5. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea.
6. They are presently considered a clade, called Anthophila.
7. There are over 16,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families.
8. Some species — including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees — live socially in colonies.
9. On the other hand some species — including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees — are solitary.
10. A toxin in bee venom called melittin may prevent HIV.
11. Melittin can kill HIV by poking holes into the virus’s protective envelope.
12. Meanwhile, when melittin hitches a ride on certain nanoparticles, it will just bounce off normal cells and leave them unharmed. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis hope the toxin can be used in preventative gels.
13. Bees are found on every continent except for Antarctica.
14. Basically they are found in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants.
15. The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halictidae, or sweat bees, but they are small and often mistaken for wasps or flies.
16. Bees range in size from tiny stingless bee species, whose workers are less than 2 millimetres (0.08 in) long, to Megachile pluto, the largest species of leafcutter bee, whose females can attain a length of 39 millimetres (1.54 in).
17. Bees feed on nectar and pollen, the former primarily as an energy source and the latter primarily for protein and other nutrients.
18. Most pollen is used as food for their larvae.
19. Vertebrate predators of bees include birds such as bee-eaters.
20. Bee pollination is important both ecologically and commercially, and the decline in wild bees has increased the value of pollination by commercially managed hives of honey bees.
21. The analysis of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species across Britain from 1980 to 2013 found the insects have been lost from a quarter of the places they inhabited in 1980.
22. During chillier seasons, worker bees can live for nine months.
23. But in the summer, they rarely last longer than six weeks—they literally work themselves to death.
24. Scout bees, which search for new sources of food, are wired for adventure. Soldier bees, discovered in 2012, work as security guards their whole life.
25. One percent of all middle-aged bees become undertakers—a genetic brain pattern compels them to remove dead bees from the hive. But most amazingly, regular honeybees—which perform multiple jobs in their lifetime—will change their brain chemistry before taking up a new gig.
26. When aging bees do jobs usually reserved for younger members, their brain stops aging. In fact, their brain ages in reverse.
27. Scientists at Arizona State University believe the discovery can help us slow the onset of dementia.
28. To reinforce their hives, bees use a resin from poplar and evergreen trees called propolis.
29. It’s basically beehive glue.
30. Although bees use it as caulk, humans use it to fight off bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
31. Research shows that propolis taken from a beehive may relieve cold sores, canker sores, herpes, sore throat, cavities, and even eczema.
32. Honeybees make out faces the same way we do.
33. They take parts—like eyebrows, lips, and ears—and cobble them together to make out the whole face. It’s called “configural processing”.
34. Even in beehives, there are workers and shirkers. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that not all bees are interchangeable drones. Some bees are thrill-seekers. Others are a bit more timid.
35. A 2011 study even found that agitated honeybees can be pessimistic, showing that, to some extent, bees might have feelings.
36. Bees differ from closely related groups such as wasps by having branched or plume-like setae (hairs), combs on the forelimbs for cleaning their antennae, small anatomical differences in limb structure, and the venation of the hind wings; and in females, by having the seventh dorsal abdominal plate divided into two half-plates.
37. The life cycle of a bee, be it a solitary or social species, involves the laying of an egg, the development through several moults of a legless larva, a pupation stage during which the insect undergoes complete metamorphosis, followed by the emergence of a winged adult.
38. Most solitary bees and bumble bees in temperate climates overwinter as adults or pupae and emerge in spring when increasing numbers of flowering plants come into bloom.
39. The males usually emerge first and search for females with which to mate. The sex of a bee is determined by whether or not the egg is fertilised.
40. After mating, a female stores the sperm, and determines which sex is required at the time each individual egg is laid, fertilised eggs producing female offspring and unfertilised eggs, males. Tropical bees may have several generations in a year and no diapause stage.