To many non-beekeepers, the lives of honeybees seem simple; they just visit flowers to pollinate them & then return to their hives with their foraged resources and honey, right? Well, no… the way bees operate within a colony is actually quite a bit more complex than that! To fully explain all of the many ways in which honeybees are such awesome creatures, we could almost certainly write a whole novel! In the interest of keeping this brief, though, we’ll answer that question as concisely as possible here.
If you’d like to know more, you’ll find plenty of resources that expand on these reasons in the “Read More” section below!
Honeybees have many interesting behaviors that aren’t too unlike humans and allow them to communicate amongst themselves to do incredible things. Bees even decide things together democratically, voting on how and when to do certain activities, like whether they should swarm to find a new home. They communicate about other things, too, using buzzing and pheromones to relay things like where a good source of food is located, if defense against a potential threat is needed, and to signal the presence of a healthy, egg-laying queen inside the hive.
Honeybee collaboration gets even more amazing when you consider the way that bees use their defined roles to adjust to many dangerous situations, like surviving through the cold temperatures of the winter season. In the fall, worker bees prepare for the oncoming cold by ensuring a generation of healthy winter bees are born and by making sure they have enough stored food resources to last until spring. This is done by kicking out any drones still left alive so that they don’t eat too much of them. The extended lifespan of “winter bees” is truly amazing, too; they can live for months as opposed to the 6-8 weeks that “typical” workers will survive.
We can also see, of course, how honeybees are awesome creatures in the ways that they give back to US, too! In addition to sharing some of their stored resources with us, like the wax they work so hard to create, the honey they’ve made from collecting nectar, and propolis, which has been found to have many health benefits, they have huge positive impacts on the environment around them. Their pollination is integral to food sources worldwide and the mutually beneficial relationship that bees and flowers have can be a great help to many gardeners and homesteaders, hobbyist gardeners, and commercial farmers alike.
We hope you’ll keep these amazing bee facts in mind as you share your love of honeybees with those around you, especially kids. We’ve found that introducing others to the awesome aspects of these fascinating creatures’ lives can be a great way to help them understand their importance, and that is certainly an important part of beekeeping. Fostering a love for these amazing creatures in other people means the possibility of more bee lovers and/or more responsible beekeepers, who are all sure to stay interested in learning about bees for years to come!
Read More
The Hidden Benefits of Beekeeping
How Bees Sense and React to Their World
The Common Races of Honeybees *
How Honeybees Manage Temperature and Moisture *
Thoughts on Responsible Beekeeping *
* Colony Member-Only Content
Related Products in the PerfectBee Store
There are plenty of books in the PerfectBee Store that all do a great job explaining why the honeybee is so awesome, but here are a few of our favorites that focus on that specifically:
The Bee: A Natural History (Book)
Understanding Bee Anatomy (Book)
