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Last Updated
13th of April, 2009
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- There are over 250 species of bee in the UK. Only
one of these is the domesticated honeybee. There are 27 species of
bumblebee and the rest are solitary bees of all shapes and sizes.
- To collect 450 grams of honey a bee might have to fly a distance equivalent to twice round the world. This is likely to involve more than 10,000 flower visits on perhaps 500 foraging trips.
- In a single collecting trip, a worker will visit between 50 and 100 flowers. She will return to the hive carrying over half her weight in pollen and nectar.
- Bees are not fast fliers;
while their wings beat over 11,000 cycles per minute, their flight
speed averages only 15 miles per hour. In comparison, the Australian
dragonfly has been clocked flying at a speed of 36 mph.
- Bees possess five eyes.
Three are simple eyes that discern light intensity, while two are large
compound eyes that are designed for detecting movement. In fact,
honeybees can perceive movements that are separated by 1/300th of a
second (compared with humans who can only sense movements separated by
1/50th of a second).
- In one day a queen can lay her weight in eggs. She will lay one egg per minute, day and night.
- The queen decides the sex of her young.
In a mechanism of sex determination known as haplodiploidy, fertilized
eggs will become female offspring, while unfertilized eggs will become
males.
- The economic value of crops grown
commercially in the UK that benefit from bee pollination is estimated
at approximately £165 million per year.
More information from http://www.saveourbees.org.uk
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