WHAT ARE BEES?

Bees are the most active and hardworking of all insects. The human owes it a lot of products and benefits. In fact if bees didn’t exist, the world would be quite different. Through the hard labour of bees, the human gets honey- to be used as food or medicine, wax- to be used for making candles, and the most important- numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Physical description of a Bee

Bees have short, winged, thick bodies covered with hair. They have six legs like most of the insects. Their bodies have three broad parts- head, thorax and abdomen.

Head

A bee’s head is less hairy compared to the rest of its body. It features two compound eyes, three simple eyes (called ocelli), and a pair of antennae. The compound eyes help bees see distant objects, even those outside the hive. Each compound eye is made up of 3,000 to 5,000 visual units called ommatidia. While these eyes cannot identify distinct shapes, they are excellent at detecting colors. Bees are unable to perceive the color red but can see ultraviolet light.

The three simple eyes, or ocelli, are located at the front of the head. They are used to detect the intensity, wavelength, and duration of light. In fact, the ocelli help bees measure light levels at dusk, allowing them to return to their hive at the appropriate time.

The antennae play a critical role in detecting and analyzing substances responsible for smell and taste. They also sense air vibrations, sound, temperature, and humidity. Bees use their antennae to communicate with one another.

Although bees do not have ears, they can sense vibrations through surfaces. They also have a straw-like structure called a proboscis, which they use for eating, sucking, and lapping up liquids.

Thorax

The thorax is the hairy middle section of a bee’s body. The legs and wings are attached to the thorax. The ends of the legs taste the substances that the bees touch. The hooks on each leg are helpful to hold the body of a bee on all types of surfaces. A bee has four wings which it flaps 200 times per second. That is what is the buzzing sound a bee makes.

Abdomen

The abdomen is the lower and the biggest part of the bee’s body. At its lowest end is attached the deadly sting which can hurt a human.

Different types of bees:

There are almost 25,000 species of bees in the world. These can be further divided into 400 types of bees, belonging to 9 families. The most common types of bees are the following:

Carpenter bees

These are the largest of all the bees in the world. They are oval,blue-black colored with six legs, wings and antennae. They derive their name from the fact that they build their nests inside wood. They use their mandibles to dig tunnels inside wood which can be even 10 feet deep. These bees are known to steal the nectar by cutting the sides of flowers, hence they are not pollinating.
Carpenter bees usually live alone. They build their nests for themselves and their young ones. These bees can cause damage to the wood where they build their nests.

Killer bees

Killer bees, also known as Africanized honey bees, are named for their similarity in appearance to regular honeybees. They have an oval-shaped body, golden-yellow coloring, and dark brown stripes. Like other bees, they possess six legs, wings, and antennae. These bees earned the name “killer bees” because of their highly aggressive behavior, often attacking humans, animals, or birds that threaten their territory. They swarm in large numbers and can pursue an intruder over long distances from their hive.

Killer bees typically build their nests near water sources and are known to emerge in swarms during rainy weather. Although their venom is not more potent than that of regular honey bees, the sheer number in which they attack can cause equal or even greater harm.

Bumble bees

Bumblebees are among the most beneficial bee species, as they play a vital role in pollinating flowers. They have an oval-shaped body, predominantly black with distinctive yellow stripes. Like other bees, bumblebees possess six legs, wings, and antennae. These bees are social insects that typically live in large colonies underground.

Unlike honeybees, bumblebees produce only a small amount of honey, which is not suitable for human consumption. Their colonies are also relatively small in size.

Bumblebees are generally non-aggressive and only sting when their nest is threatened. Their sting is quite painful and can be dangerous, as they are capable of stinging multiple times. This is because their stinger does not become lodged in the skin, allowing them to fly away after stinging.

Honey bees

Honey bees are oval, golden yellow in color with brown strips. They also have six legs, wings and antennae like their other counterparts. A honey bee is perhaps the most beneficial insect. It provides almost $20 billion annually from pollination of over 120 cultivated crops in addition to the production of honey. The collected honey is stored in the honeycombs, which is used to feed young ones in colder months.
Honey bees defend their hive from any external danger. When realizing a danger, honey bee workers release substances from glands in the sting apparatus and parts of its mouth, which acts as a signal to other bees to attack, and thus they start stinging in a huge swarm. A honey bee dies eventually after stinging because it loses its sting inside of the victim.

Life stages of a bee

Bees exhibit a complete development, i.e, the young ones and the adults look completely different and eat completely different. The life stages are eggs, larva, pupa and adult.

Eggs

The lifecycle of a bee begins with eggs which are 1 to 1.5 mm long. A queen lays eggs within each cell of a honeycomb. These get hatched after 3 days. Fertilized eggs become the worker bees which later get the food to and take care of the colony.

Larva

During its first days the larva is very small resembling a worm without legs and eyes. But it drastically gains weight because it is to be fed almost a thousand times a day. Larvae are required to molt in order to grow this fast.
For the first two days the larvae are fed with a royal jelly and from the third day, honey, pollen and water are enough to raise them.

Pupa

At this stage, the body of the larva begins to look like that of an adult. The legs, wings and abdomen are now visible. The internal organs develop as well. Now the body is fat enough to store food.

Adult

The pupal skin darkens and the adult is ready to emerge. It is still not fully developed and comes out of the nest after three to four hours. Adult bees can be either workers, queens or drones. A honeybee colony consists of 50000 to 60000 workers, 500-1000 drones and one queen who is the only fertile bee in the hive.

“Workers”:

These are female bees who do all the work in a colony. Inside the nest, they look after the queen and larvae, clean the hive, feed the young and produce wax. They also keep the hive warm. When they are able to move outside, they guard the nest, collect nectar, repair the nest, collect water and pollen.

“Queen”:

The queen is the mother of all the menders of the hive. She is taken much care of. She stays in the nest for the rest of her life after mating and she is the one who lays eggs. A queen bee lives for 3-4 years.

“Drones”:

Males bees are called drones. They are bigger in size. They are the least useful in the hive and are forced out in the autumn season.

The importance of bees in nature

The most important activity that a bee carries out is pollination. Bees are major pollinators for flowers. If they are not pollinated the flowers wont produce any fruits and seed. Up to a third of all our food depends on bees for pollination.

When a bee sits on a flower to collect nectar and pollen, some pollen sticks to her body. Later when she visits another flower, this stuck pollen is rubbed off into it thus completing the reproduction process. When this process takes place, fertilization occurs and fruits can develop.