IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BEES 

Amazing facts about the amazing Honey Bee 

1.Bees can fly at 15 miles per hour 
2.Bees are the only insect in the world that make food that people can eat 
3.Honey contains all of the substances needed to sustain life, including enzymes, water, minerals and vitamins 
4.Eating honey can help you smarter! It is the only food to contain ‘pinocembrin’ that is an antioxidant that improves brain function 
5.One bee will only make 1/12 of a teaspoon on honey in its entire life 
6.Many plants rely on insects like bees in order to be pollinated; which is why they provide nectar to say thanks 
7.A colony of bees can contain between 20,000 and 60,000 bees, but only one queen bee 
8.A bee’s wings beat 200 times a second, that’s 12,000 times a minute! 
9.Worker bees, who are all female, are the only ones who will attack you, and only if they feel threatened 
10.Each colony smells different to bees, this is so they can tell where they live! 
11.It would take 1,100 bees to make 1kg of honey and they would have to visit 4 million flowers 
12.There are 900 cells in a bee’s brain 
13.The queen bee will lay around 2,000 eggs a day 
14.The queen bee can live up to 5 years and is the only bee that lays eggs. 
15.Bees have two separate stomachs; one for food and another just for nectar 
16.Honey has natural preservatives so that it won’t go bad 
17.A third of all the plants we eat have been pollinated by bees 
18.Bees have been around for more than 30 million years 
19.Bees communicate by smells called ‘pheromones’ and by performing special ‘dances’ 
20.Bee keepers only take the honey that the bees do not need, but this can be as much as 45kg from one hive! 
21.There are lots of different types of honey which taste different depending on the flowers used to make it 
22.During chillier seasons, worker bees can live for nine months. But in the summer, they rarely last longer than six weeks—they literally work themselves to death. 
23.Bees use the sun as a compass. But when it’s cloudy they have a backup—they navigate by polarized light, using special photoreceptors to find the sun’s place in the sky. 
24.Honey bees cannot see the colour red 
 
With thanks to: 
http://www.bees4kids.org.uk 
http://mentalfloss.com 
http://www.benefits-of-honey.com 
http://www.thebeefarmer.co.uk