Honeybees

Honeybees

By Zi Jia Zhang

Table Of Contents Honey Production/Food.............................................................................................................................4 pg.

Types Of Honeybees....................................................................................................................................5 pg.

Habitat....................................................................................................................................................................6 pg.

Life Cycle..............................................................................................................................................................7 pg.

Glossary................................................................................................................................................................8 pg.

Index........................................................................................................................................................................9 pg.

Bibliography........................................................................................................................................................10-11 pg.

About The Author.............................................................................................................................................12 pg.

n o i t c u d o r Int

Did you know? After a worker bee or a drone stings an person they die,

because their stinger gets stuck into the person’s body. The worker bees has violet vision, so when they collects nectar they can see which flower has the

most. When the weather is warm, the queen bee lays more than one thousand eggs a day! Most of the bees laid by the queen are worker bee, normally

about 100 drones in one hive. And only one queen bee, which can be figured out just in a few days because it grows much faster. Start reading this book and you’ll find out all of the most interesting facts about honeybees!

Honeybees have special ways of collecting honey. A worker bee collects the

nectar. The worker bee has violet

Honey Production/Food

vision; they can see the nectar in purple. So

when the worker bees collect nectar from the flower, they can see which flower has more

nectar. And while the are sucking the nectar, pollen from the flowers get stuck on the bee’s body. The honeybees then put the

nectar into their honey sac, which they keep their honey in.

This diagram shows the main parts of an bee’s body.

Fun Fact Did you know that you may see

different color honey in an beehive?

That’s because some types of

flower’s nectar may be other colors.

So when the bee spit the nectar into

one of the cells it becomes that color.

The honeybees puts sugar in the nectar, so it changes to honey inside the honey sac. After they put it in their

honey sac, they fly to their hive. Then about half an hour later, the worker bee spits the nectar in one of the cells.

Then they fan the honey with their wing, because when

the bees fan it, the liquidly honey turns gooey and sticky; sometimes the honeybees drink honey when they need energy. They normally are already full after they drink the nectar. That’s how the honeybees get honey.

There are three kinds of honeybees; they are the

Types Of Honeybees

worker bees, drones, and the queen. Different types of

bees have different jobs to do. The worker bees are the

smallest and are female, they have many jobs to do. For example they have to make honey, clean the hive, feed baby bees, build the wax comb, and are the only ones who can get nectar from flowers. The drones are all

males; they mate with the queen bee. After they mate, the drones die and the queen bee lays thousands of eggs a day for the rest of her life.

There is only one-queen bee in a hive, the queen bee is the largest of all, and her job is to lay eggs. When the weather is warm, the queen bee can lay more than one thousand eggs a day. When she is laying eggs a group of workers surround her to help. She makes pheromones, so when the other bees smell the

pheromones they know what the queen bee wants them to do. So that is what the differences between the three kinds of honeybees.

Habitat

Honeybees have interesting habitats; they usually live in a hive.

About ten thousand to sixty thousand honeybees live in one hive. But there is only one queen bee, about one hundred

drones and the rest are workers. A big group of honeybees are called a colony. One colony shares one hive. In a beehive there are a lot of cells. The cells can be called the honeycomb; one cell can only hold one egg or a baby bee at a time. It can also be reused after the bees clean it. A honeycomb is a wax tray that the honeybees use to keep honey and eggs. The worker

bees also chew the cells to form the hexagon shapes, the cells in the middle is for the eggs and the outer cells is for keeping

honey and food. Some bees even build their honeycomb in tree holes.

This graph explains different plants pollinated by honeybees.

Life Cycle

This diagram shows how the queen bee lays an egg and the baby bee’s life cycle.

Honeybees have four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and then turn into an adult. The worker bees feed the queen bee

royal jelly, which is a yellow liquid; it has a lot of protein in it. The worker bee feeds the queen bee and the drones for the first couple of weeks with milk, and then the worker bee feeds them with beebread. Beebread is honey

and pollen mixed together. Even though every honeybee has to go through the same four stages, but it depends on which type of bee they are. For example, it takes around 16 days for a queen bee to fully grow, 21 days for a

worker bee, and 24 days for a drone to become an adult. When the queen bee lays an egg at the bottom of the cell, it takes about three days to turn a larva, and then the worker bees feed the larva so it would grow bigger.

Then the larva would split open and spins a cocoon. Inside the larva a pupa will appear, it will grow eyes, legs, and wings. Finally the bee will come out of the cell. That is the honeybee’s life cycle.

Glossary

Honey sac- Is the place where honeybees keep the nectar they have drank.

Pheromones- Chemicals made by animals to send each other messages to communicate.

Nectar- The juice inside an flower, it turn into honey when the nectar gets in the honey sac.

Honeycomb- The hexagon shapes that contains baby bees, food, and eggs.

Royal Jelly- An type of food that is given to adult queens, which helps the queen grow stronger and bigger.

Beebread- Is food that is mixed with honey and pollen, used to feed the worker bees and the drones.

Pollen- Is powder which grows in the flower and gets stuck on the bee’s body when they’re collecting nectar.

Index

Honey sac- pg.4 Nectar- pg.4

Pollen-pg.4,7

Pheromones- pg.5 Honeycomb- pg.6 Royal Jelly- pg.7 Beebread- pg.7

Queen bee- pg.5,6,7

Worker bee-pg.4,5,7 Drones-pg.5,6,7

Bibliography Micucci, Charles. The Life and times of the Honeybee. New York: Ticknor & Fields for Young Readers, 1995. Print.

Markovics, Joyce L., and Brian V. Brown. The Honey Bee's Hive: A Thriving City. New York, NY: Bearport Pub., 2010. Print.

Beneficialbugs.org. n.d. HONEY BEE. [online] Available at: http://beneficialbugs.org/bugs/Honeybee/honey_bee.htm [Accessed: 23 Jan 2014].

The South Carolina Mid-State Beekeepers Association. n.d. Honey Bee Life Cycle. [online] Available at: http://www.scmidstatebeekeepers.org/ honeybeelifecycle.htm [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014].

(Extension.org, 2013)

Extension.org. 2013. First Lessons in Beekeeping: Honey Bee Biology - eXtension. [online] Available at: http://www.extension.org/pages/ 21738/first-lessons-in-beekeeping:-honey-bee-biology#.UuHhc2Swr-Y

Get Buzzing About Bees. 2014. Life Cycle of The Honey Bee. [online] Available at: http://getbuzzingaboutbees.com/a-guide-to-honey-bees/ life-cycle-of-the-honey-bee [Accessed: 28 Jan 2014].

Ecop.pbworks.com. 2003. Environmental Challenges of the RP / Bee Wax. [online] Available at: http://ecop.pbworks.com/w/page/ 18520497/Bee%20Wax [Accessed: 28 Jan 2014].

Quest.eb.com.

Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest In-text: (Quest.eb.com, 2014)

ownipproject09 - Disappearance of Honey Bees (Townipproject09.wikispaces.com, 2014)

Townipproject09.wikispaces.com. 2014. townipproject09 - Disappearance of Honey Bees. [online] Available at: http://townipproject09.wikispaces.com/Disappearance+of+Honey+Bees (Infovisual.info, 2005) Infovisual.info. 2005. Bee. [online] Available at: http://www.infovisual.info/02/041_en.html Bbc.co.uk. (2000). Bbc nature - european honey bee videos, news and facts. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ nature/life/European_honey_bee

About The Author

Zi Jia Zhang goes to Shanghai American School, and is currently in Mr. Paci’s class. She has an older brother, called Sean. Her hobbies are swimming, camping, and drawing. Zi Jia loves nature and always wonder about “how” or “why” things were formed. Last time she was at an camp in

America, and saw an bee flying towards her friend. She was going to warn her but it was too late,

it stung her friend and then dropped to the ground died. That was the moment when she wanted to do some research on bees.

This book is going to have all of the most interesting facts about honeybees! It will tell you about how they make honey or what is it like in the inside of an beehive.

Did you know that the queen bee can lay over one thousand eggs a day?All you have to do is simply open the cover and you will be an expert on honeybees.

Check it out!

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