25 Honey Bee Facts: Queens, Dances, Honey and More

Facts about the colony

• A strong summer colony can hold 40,000 to 60,000 bees.
• There is usually only one queen, and she can lay up to about 1,500 eggs a day at the peak of the season.
• Worker bees are all female. They clean, feed young, build comb, guard the entrance and forage.
• Drones are male bees. Their job is to mate with queens from other colonies; they do not sting or gather food.
• The queen and workers develop from the same kind of egg; what changes is the food. Larvae fed royal jelly throughout become queens.
• Workers change jobs as they age, starting inside the hive and becoming foragers in their last weeks.

Facts about bees and flowers

• Bees communicate where flowers are with the waggle dance. Karl von Frisch, who decoded it, shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• The direction of the dance shows the direction of the flowers relative to the sun; its length shows distance.
• A honey bee usually forages within about two to three miles of the hive.
• Bees can see ultraviolet light, which reveals patterns on flowers invisible to us.
• Honey bees have five eyes: two large compound eyes and three small simple eyes on top of the head.
• Their wings beat about 200 times a second, which makes the buzz.

Facts about honey

• One worker bee makes about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her life.
• Bees visit about 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey, according to the National Honey Board.
• Honey is about 17 to 18 percent water; bees fan their wings to dry nectar into honey.
• Honey keeps for a very long time; honey residue about 5,000 years old has been found in Georgia.
• A colony may need 60 pounds or more of honey to survive a northern winter.
• The color and flavor of honey depend on the flowers the bees visit.

Facts about stings and safety

• Only female bees can sting.
• A worker's stinger is barbed, so when she stings a mammal it usually stays in the skin and she dies.
• A queen's stinger is smooth, and she uses it mainly against rival queens.
• Swarming bees are usually calm because they have no hive to defend.
• Never give honey to a baby under 12 months; see why babies can't have honey.

Facts about bees and people

Honey bees are not native to the Americas. European colonists brought them to Virginia in the early 1600s, and Native Americans reportedly called them the white man's fly. Today the western honey bee is the official state insect of many US states. Honey bees pollinate many crops, from almonds and apples to blueberries and cranberries, and commercial beekeepers move hives across the country for pollination. See which bees make honey and what do bees do in winter.

For more numbers, see how much honey does a bee make, and for honey safety for little ones, why babies can't have honey.

Taste what bees make

The best way to appreciate honey bees is to taste the range of honeys they make from different flowers. Our Pure Raw Honey Sampler holds four small single-origin jars you choose, perfect for a classroom-style tasting for older kids and adults. See honey flavors for a tasting guide.