Bees Flashcards
Historically, used by
cave dwellers
historically: must ___ hive to get honey out
destroy
when was the invention of hives, frames, and foundations?
1789
to not destroy hive, do we humans invented what?
put foundation in and bees draw honey off of that
Before sugar, what did we use as sweetener?
honey
Importance to humanity: Direct sources of what?
honey, bee pollen, royal jelly, bees wax
Importance to humanity: indirect sources of what?
pollination
Livelihood for bees (2023 stats)
- WI: 62,000 colonies
- 2.79 million pounds of honey
- $8.4 million (value production)
What is the biggest aspect in production?
POLLINATION
Social structure of bees
- queen > drone > worker
Queen bee
- mother to all in the hive
- fully functional female
- bigger than other bees (longer and thinner)
How many queens per hive?
1
lifespan of queen bee
long life (many as possible)
Queen produced by feeding ____
- royal jelly
- feed it to a larvae which will turn into a queen
what would happen if many queens in hive?
fight till 1 queen left
queen is the only bee to ___
lay eggs
how many eggs does queen bee lay?
at peak: 2000-3000
Drone
male bees
Drone: traits
- larger and wider than others
- no stinger, short tongue
- very good antennae
- have best of times and worst of times
- lives life of luxury, BUT fly around and look for virgin queen to mate with
-> but during fall or during shortage of food, gets pushed out of hive to die
Nays of being a drone
during fall or during shortage of food, gets pushed out of hive to die
Lifespan of drone
1 season gneerally
Killed in fall
drones developed by ___
parthenogenesis
Define parthenogenesis
- when UNfertilized egg spontaneously from into a drone
- HAploid egg (one copy of DNA)
- Formation continues like a normal embryo
- result: males really just multiply and deliver queen’s generic material
Who determines sex of offspring
Queen
Fertilized egg ->
Unfertilized egg -> drone
“a _____ has a grandfather but no father and can have grandsons but no ___”
drone, sons
Bee reproduction
- Virgin queen makes mating flight
- Several drones mate with her in flight
- Queen goes back to hive
- Can be done artificially
How many drones mate with queen in flight?
several
Bees: Who makes the mating flight?
virgin queen
if drone mates with queen, what happens to him?
dies
Can bee reproduction be done artificially?
yes
Queen lays an egg in what
wach cell
Bee egg hatches into what
larva
workers feed larvae with what?
mixture of pollen and nectar (think about nutrients: pollen is protein source, nectar is sugar)
Bee’s source of protein and energy?
Protein: pollen
Energy: nectar
takes __ days for bee pupas to form inside workers’ cap cell
12 days
It takes ___ days from egg to emerge as adult worker bee
21
Makeup of bee workers
-pollen baskets
- wax glands
- scent glands
- barbed stinger
- long tongue
Which bee is the smallest?
workers
which bee is the most abundant?
workers: 3000-60000 per hive
What sex is workers?
female, but underdeveloped
T/F: A honey bee will die if it stings you
T
Bee workers’ duties
- wax secretion
- brood rearing (brood = baby bees, larvae)
- attending to queen
- guarding hive entrance
- nectar and pollen collection (provides all necessary nutrients for bees (other than water)
- bees work both day and night
Queen excluder
- screen with spaces that worker bees can go through but queen cannot (she too big)
- ut she can’t go into upper frames
- why: we don’t want egg and larvae in the comb if we gonna eat it
propolis
“bee glue”
- bees will glue tgt frames, fill up a hole
Smoker
put stuff in it to burn a bit which bring out smoke
- calms bees down and back them off
swarming
a way for bees to multiply (1 hive of bees and some leave to start another hive)
- important for proliferation of species
- causes/reasons: overcrowded hive
why would yo not want bees to swarm?
wanna let them make honey where YOU can collect it
‘methods of preventing swarming
- keep open brood area (add more chambers
- keep a productive young queen
Bee communication
- the way they DANCE tell other bees where food course are
- chemicals: pheromones (smells, scents) -> Each hive have their own unique scent
CCD: Colony collapse disorder
- lots of (feral) hives die
- Causes: don’t know for sure, but proposed:
->GMO plants, pesticides, cell phone radiation, global warming, nosema fungus,
