Honey Bees

Since the late 1990s, beekeepers around the world have observed the mysterious and sudden disappearance of bees, and report unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies. Bees do more than just make honey! Bee transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world's crops and 90% affects our food. The sweet fruits humans eat such as, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas would not be the same taste wise as they are now. We simply couldn’t live in the same world if it weren’t for the bees.

Ellis, Jamie, and Amanda Ellis. "Africanized Honey Bee - Apis Mellifera Scutellata Lepeletier." UF IFAS. University of Florida, Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Scientists and Beekeepers Can Make Killer Bees Less Aggressive People discovered honey since an ancient time and considering it as liquid gold. There are many kinds of bees that produce honey, and it differs from place to place. One remarkable species is African honeybee which well known for its ability to produce more honey than other species and survive in hot climate (Anne, 2006). Evans and Butler(2010) have acknowledged that some species of honey bees are known as Killer bees or Africanized bees, which are currently living in some parts of South America and North America, and they started to move northward in the United States.

Honey bees are a non-native species in both North and South America. European honey bees (EHB) were first introduced as a relatively mild species. The EHB, however, is not well suited for tropical climates. After comparing the honey yields of EHB in the Americas to the yields of honey bees in Africa, Brazilian

Did you know that honeybees are the only creature that makes things for humans? You have probably heard of the food honey, but do you know about the fascinating creatures that make the sugary substance? The Apis Mellifera, also known as domestic honeybees, are some of the most interesting creatures that live on our Earth. From the way honeybees make they're hive, to the way they make honey, honeybees have a very riveting way of life.

Bees are essential to the survival of many races on this earth. With over 85% of the world's plants depending on pollination that only organisms such as the bee can provide it is said that without bees the human race would have approximately 4 years to live. When bees land on a flower their feet often slip into a little groove that holds pollen sacs. When the bee then flies away it carries off this sac like a saddlebag stuck on its feet. When this bee lands on another flower looking for nectar, the "saddlebag" falls off, the pollen falls out of the sac, and pollination is underway. This occurrence is so important as it is what leads to the production of fruits that any given plant may produce. There are around 20,000 different types of bees

We know that European honey bee is subject to diseases, parasites, and predators coming from Asia and Africa and it is unable to control it by itself. In these cases, the beekeeper developed a sort of symbiosis with the bees, taking some products and in return ensuring the survival of the colonies, controlling diseases, parasitic infestations, and providing nourishment during bad seasons where there is

The establishment of bees’ nesting sites in the wild, and the outside forces that affect habitat destruction is abundant. Many of the nesting development in terms of, disturbed habitats play an prominent figure in the system of bees and their nesting development. Their adaptations of living have evolved due to the dramatic environmental change in their ecosystem, in which they are reliant on upon survival, nesting, and reproducing (Graham, J.M,1992). They grow and thrive in the cells of the honey bee hives, and use for storing nectar, pollen, and honey. Bees are similar to our society, has a simultaneously managing system of government, in other words, one bees’ responsibility many differentiate from other bees’ and so on (Winston, M. L.,1987).

The honeybee’s scientific name is Apis mellifera, Apis meaning “swarm”, and Mellifera meaning “honey-bearing”. Bees are widely known and appreciated for their ability to make honey. To make honey, they go through an intricate and devoted process.

relative humidity on honey bee races. Here, the effects of different levels of temperature and

An average bee colony produces 27.2-45.4 kg of honey each year. Colonies are grouped in a three-tier organization consisting of 50.000-70.000 workers, one queen, and 2.000 drones. Worker bees only live for three to six weeks, each one collecting about one teaspoon of nectar. One kilogram of honey requires 3.96kg of nectar, which requires approximately four and a half million flowers to collect. When worker bees are about 20 days old they leave the hive to collect nectar, the sweet recreation produced by flowers’ glands. Bees extract the liquid from various flowers using their long tube-shaped nose. The nectar is stored in bees’ extra stomach where the fluid is mixed with many enzymes which change nectar’s chemical composition and pH making

Honey bees are generalists. They can collect pollen from over 100 families of plants, and they have even been observed to collect pollen from the surfaces of vehicals (Danforth; vanEngelsdorp and Meixner, 2010). Yet they require a certain abundance and diversity of resources within a specific foraging range. Beekman and Ratnieks (2000) have shown that honey bees forage within a range of 0.5 km to 10 km, with an average range of 2.3 km. To some extent, foraging distances are genetically determined (Oldroyd et al., 1993), but they are also determined by the quality and abundance of resources near the hive (Steffan-Dewenter and Kuhn, 2003; Baum, 2003). It has been repeatedly shown that honey bees forage

It is believed that the bees have appeared on Earth about 125 million years ago in conjunction to Angiosperms. The tribe Meliponini or native bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae) comprises about 300 species that in addition to obtaining food resources in plant species, they use them as a shelter. In Brazil these bees are found in all ecosystems, and the Caatinga, despite environmental limitations, comprises the largest number of stingless bees worldwide. The presence and the quality of the arboreal vegetation present in an area is essential to the establishment of the stingless bees, showing an urgent demand for research on these animals and their interactions in the places where they occur. Therefore, this chapter aimed to evaluate the prevalence of

The main problems affecting them are [the] loss of suitable habitat [and the lack of nesting sites that meet their standards]” (RHS). Within these particular species of bees, they often find themselves having the inability to expand, during foraging, due to the fragmentation of their natural habitat of wild flowers and flower meadows. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the habitat of the bees has been experiencing fragmentation at a high because of the increase in urbanization in the absence of habitat for wildlife, farms that have not been kept up to date and has been deserted, and perilous flowers, etc. that is not only unfriendly to pollinators, but unfriendly to the environment as well. Apart but similar to the loss of suitable habitat, sites for nesting are becoming much more difficult for the bumblebees and solitary bees to find. The main reason as to why these bees face this issue is because there are requirements that must be met in order to continue the cycle of reproduction and increase the bee population in its entirety. Fragmentation, in part, is also a factor in a bee’s inability to find nesting

During the past decade the presence of bee diseases, droughts and other variable weather conditions has reduced the supply of bees worldwide. In the United States for example, the past few years have seen bush-fires, droughts, the killer mite (Varroa destructor) and the Colony Collapse Disorder wreck havoc with U.S. honey crops by destroying nearly two-thirds of their colonies. This has lead to a market opportunity for other countries to sell their honey to the U.S., which happens to be the largest consumer (and 3rd largest importer) of honey worldwide.