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14 Fun Facts About Honey Bees

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Honey bee farmers love to share all the essential information about this fascinating species. Read on for 14 cool facts about honey bees.

Powerful Pollinators

Honey bees help other plants grow because they're an important pollinator for fruits, vegetables and flowers. Plants are able to grow seeds and fruits because the bees transfer pollen between them.

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Three Kinds in the Hive

Honey bees living in hives are either the queen, workers or drones. One queen runs the entire hive, laying the eggs that produce the next generation of bees in the hive.

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Let the Honey Flow

Honey bees produce two to three times the amount of honey they'll need to get them through the winter. Humans harvest the surplus.

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Royal Jelly

Workers create a new queen bee when the old one dies by choosing a young larva and feeding it royal jelly, a special food that lets the larva develop into a fertile queen.

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Flying Fast

Honey bees fly at 15 miles per hour. During flight, they beat their wings an astonishing 200 times per second.

Odorant Receptors

Bees have a really strong sense of smell, which they use to communicate with each other within the hive. Every bee has 170 odorant receptors.

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A Short and Sweet Life

The average worker bee will produce about 1/12 teaspoon of honey during its lifetime. A worker bee's life usually lasts about five to six weeks.

Busy Bee

The queen is busiest in the summer, when she lays up to 2,500 eggs per day. She can live as many as five years.

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Waggle Dance

Honey bees share information about food sources by performing the "waggle dance." A worker waggles its body and moves in a figure-eight to show the other bees where the food is.

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Colony Collapse

Colonies of bees have disappeared over the last 15 years for unknown reasons. This "colony collapse disorder" shows that as many as 90 percent of bees have disappeared, never to return, states National Geographic

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Queen for Sale

Queen honey bees for sale can cost about $20 or $25 each. Some people raise queen bees for a hobby and sell them to other beekeepers for a profit.

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Ladies in Waiting

Many nurse bees groom and care for the queen bee. This is because she is so busy laying eggs that she doesn't have time to feed herself.

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Crowning a New Queen

To make a new queen, you can easily split a hive into two. The original queen will remain in one half of the hive and the workers will turn one of the larva into a new queen in the other.

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Queen's Quarters

The queen cell is much bigger than an average cell and has a different shape, so it's easy to pick out. Queen cells usually hang vertically rather than horizontally.

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