Facts on the Honey Bee

During 2009, approximately one-third of all honey bee colonies in the United States died.

There are many bee species commonly known as "honeybees" or Apis mallifera. There are many subspecies of Apis mallifera, but the most famous is Apis mallifera mallifera---or the European honeybee. Other subspecies of honeybees live as far south as the tip of South America and as far north as Sweden. All species of honeybees are suffering from colony collapse disorder---or CCD.

Range

The European honeybee may now be found in North America and South America, but they originated in Europe, Asia and Africa. When European colonists went to the New World beginning in the 1500s, they brought honeybees with them. Native Americans nicknamed the bees "white men's flies." North America did have a honey bee species, Apis nearctica, but it became extinct about 14 million years ago.

Society

Honeybees live in vast colonies with populations ranging from the hundreds to 50,000. Bees, like ants and termites, have been dubbed "superorganisms"---which Webster's New World College Dictionary defines as "a colony of interdependent organisms, as in the social insects, whose castes, individuals, etc. act as a unit." There is only one queen, which functions as an egg-making machine. She mates with drones, the only male honeybees. The majority of honeybees are called workers and they are all female.

Queens

Queen bees are significantly larger than the other bees. Although called a "queen," there is no evidence that she controls the colony, except by producing eggs. She is thought to be able to choose which eggs will be drones and which will be female. She can lay as many as 1,000 eggs a day or more than 200,000 in her lifetime of about two to three years. The brains of queen bees are smaller than those of worker bees.

Benefits

Honeybees not only produce honey but pollinate over 90 types of food crops, including almonds, strawberries, clover and onions. The bees pollinate crops by flying from one flower, gathering pollen on their legs and then flying to another flower. According to the British Beekeepers' Association, the average honeybee colony can make 25 pounds---11 kilograms---of honey per year for human harvesting.

Speculation

Many honeybee colonies around the world have died from a mysterious disease called colony collapse disorder. It is unknown what causes CCD or just how it contributes to killing the bee. The disease may make the bees come out of hibernation and starve to death during the winter when flowers for making food are not available. About one-third of American honeybee colonies died in 2009. As a consequence of the bees dying, food crops are threatened because the bees are not available for pollination.

References

• National Geographic: Apis Mallifera, Honeybees
• University of Michigan Museum of Geology: Animal Diversity Website: Apis Mallifera
• Science News: Fossil shows first all-American honeybee
• The British Beekeepers' Association: Bee FAQ
• The Guardian: Fears for crops as shock figures from American show scale of bee catastrophe; May 2, 2010

Resources

• Help the Honey Bees
• USDA Announces Ambitious Honey Bee Research Initiative
• Back Yard Beekeepers Association