We all are aware of the honey bees. Honey bees fall under the category of insects. There are a lot of insects available in our environment and honey bees are also one of them. We can find many different species of honey bees in the environment and they can be different in many different countries. They can play a very significant part in our environment.
Honeybees are one of the main insects. They help to pollinate almost every kind of plant. They collect pollen grains and spread them to the female parts available in the plant. After the fertilization, the flower starts to turn into a fruit. All kinds of flowers contain pollen grains in them and almost every one of us has read that much in our school textbooks. Pollen grains are available in every colour you can think of. And It sometimes is the same as the colour of the flower.
A flower can have female and male reproductive parts at the same time. Bees help to pollinate the female part of the flower and sometimes they transfer the pollen grains to the same flowers. But sometimes they take the pollen grains from one flower and leave them in some other flower and we can refer to this activity as cross pollination. Many other aspects of the environment help in pollination like wind, butterflies, and many other flies.
We can get many different things from a beehive and we can use them for different activities. To understand the concept, first, we need to clear the other aspects of a flower, a bee, etc. We will also talk about what is pollen and nectar.
1. Honey Bee
A honey bee is one of the many different insects in our environment. Many different species are available of honey bees and all of them produce honey. We can say honey bees are the only insects on the planet earth that produce something that humans can consume too. Honey bees have yellow and black coloured bodies in the pattern of strips.
They sit on one flower to suck nectar and while doing that very fine pollen grains sticks to their bodies. When they sit on the next flower, they leave the pollen there and it gets fertilized. Then it slowly transforms into a fruit or a vegetable. Bees always divide different roles into different groups, and they perform the same duty until they die.
It is very interesting to know that just like mosquitoes, females are the ones who perform the outdoor duty. Male honey bees are only used for reproduction. There is only one bee in the hive who reproduces the larvae and we can refer to it as the queen bee. All the other female honey bees leave their beehive to collect pollen grains and nectar and then return.
Although the species can be different based on the biographical factor the work distribution is the same everywhere. Honey bees also produce more than they need, so we can take some without harming them. We can extract both honey and wax from the beehive. We will talk about all this in the next part of this particular article.
2. The Queen Bee
As we have talked about the bees in the earlier part of this article it is very important to know a little about the queen bee of a beehive. Just as any group or family beehives also need someone to guide the bees of the beehive and monitor their behaviour. The queen bee never leaves the beehive to collect nectar. They are only for reproduction in the hive and the beehive has only one queen bee at a time.
If the queen bee dies the reproduction stops until they get the next honey bee. The male honey bees have only one purpose and that is to please the queen bee and help it in the reproduction system. It also plays the role of keeping track of the stock of both nectar and pollen in the beehive. Queen bee reproduces the larvae and nurtures them until they can work with the other workers.
3. Worker Bees
When we talk about honey or wax production, it is important to know who produces the honey. The worker bees are the female ones in all the beehives but they can’t reproduce. Only queen bee is eligible to produce in a beehive. Worker bees have the role of leaving the beehive every day and going to collect nectar from flowers.
When they suck the nectar from the flowers the pollen grains stick to their bodies and spread them in the air. This helps to transport the pollen from the female part of the flower to the male part safely. Then it results in fertilization and after a few days, we get the fruits. They also protect the beehive from the attack of other insects. Workers bees build the beehive and do the required repair when it’s needed.
4. The Male Honey Bee
When it comes to the process of reproduction, no matter what the species is a male and female is needed. The male honey bees stay inside the beehive all the time because they are not needed to do any work other than reproduction. Male honey bees have the role of reproducing more and more honey bees with the queen bee.
If a queen bee dies the male performs the same role as the next queen bee. Their only role is to do reproduction until the day they die. All the honey bees have hairy bodies because it can help them to stick pollen to their body which later helps in reproduction.
5. The Beehive And Its Structure
The beehive is a space where a large group of honey bees live together and work together. A beehive is always formed by the worker bees of the nest and they are female only. They work together in sync to form the beehive in time to provide shelter to their group. It has compartments shaped like hexagons, and they spread from the outer line to the inner part of the nest. All the compartments consist of similar shapes and dimensions.
The shape of the nest resembles an oval, and the compartments consist of honey wax. These compartments are used by the bees to store the food they collect when they go outside of the nest. They mainly collect nectar and pollen in those compartments. Bees also keep their larvae in these cells until they become honey bees.
We can often see that people call this arrangement of hexagon cells a honeycomb. When the pollen grains get old they keep in these cells and block the cells from all directions to infuse hydrochloric acid in it. This helps to keep the pollen grains edible for a longer period. This structure also helps them to protect their nest from other insects all the time.
6. The Flowers And The Bees
The flowers and the bees have had a strong connection with each other for ages. They rely on each other almost completely. A Flower has both male and female reproductive organs but needs to meet with each other to perform the act of fertilization and bees help the flowers in this process. When a bee goes to sit on a flower the pollen usually sticks to its body because they have hairy structural bodies. And when they sit on the other flower they drop the pollen drains there and this helps in the reproduction of plants.
A bee sits on a beautiful flower to suck pollen and nectar out of it because they are their main source of food. They suck the pollen and drop them in their nests because the whole clan depends on them for food. They consume some of the pollen and store the rest of it for future purposes. Bees have many different techniques to keep the pollen grains safe and edible for a very long time.
All the fruits we eat are formed from a flower. For that purpose, bees are important to us because they can help the flowers in cross-pollination. The structure of their body is beneficial for this purpose. They also make buzzing sounds and movement which helps in dropping the pollen grains from one flower to another.
Bees use the pollen grains and nectar to convert them into honey. The pollen gives them the required minerals and vitamins along with some carbohydrates to perform all these activities. They are known to produce more products than they need and that is exactly the reason why we humans can also consume these products from nature.
7. Benefits Of Honey Bees For Human Beings
We can safely say that honeybees are beneficial for us in many different ways. The first can be through agricultural purposes. Human beings who live in rural areas might depend on harvesting honey and many other products from the honeycombs. This can provide them with an acceptable level of living for their families and loved ones.
The next benefit can be that they help us in harvesting many crops. When we plant the seeds to grow some fruits first they turn to flowers. The flowers can not fertilize on their own and for this purpose, we can use bees. The bees help in the transfer of pollen grains to help with the purpose of fertilization in those plants. Only after fertilization, a flower can convert into beautiful and tasty fruits.
The bees produce more products than they need for their survival and it can be helpful for us. We can get honey, jelly wax, etc. from their nests. These products can not be made by humans on their own so they need bees for that reason.
8. The Benefits Of Honey
We talked a lot about the bees in the previous section of this article and bees collect pollen from many different flowers. And how they help in the fertilization of the plants. We will dedicate this whole section to the benefits of honey and does it gets prepared in the first place.
The very first benefit of honey is that even though it is very sweet it doesn’t increase the level of sugar in your blood. People who are suffering from diabetes or are on the board line but like to have sweet dishes can replace the sugar with honey. The honey intake daily is also not harmful to anyone. We can use it in any dish without any hesitation because it always tastes good and adds an extra element to the dish.
Now, people especially youngsters are paying extra attention to their health and body and it is a very important thing for all of us. They often want to track their caloric intake along with their sugar intake and honey can be their best friend. People can add honey to their shakes or smoothies as a replacement for sugar. Honey is beneficial for their health and it can help us to stay healthy for longer periods.
Honey has been gaining popularity for its healing properties in our household remedies since we were kids. When we have a cough we can take honey and it can soothe our throat pain It is safe for children of all ages too. In some places on the earth, parents give honey to their kids as a first taste after they are born. There can be many more benefits of honey which we might not be able to mention here.
9. Other Products We Get From A Honeycomb
More than one product comes from a beehive that can be beneficial and important in our lives and in this section, we will talk about the same.
Let’s start with the bee wax, It is used by the honey bees to make their nest. They collect it from the flowers too and when it comes to its uses we can talk about it a lot. Beeswax is extracted from the beehive and it can be used to make many different kinds of beautiful candles. The beauty industries use this in many of their products such as lipsticks, lip balms, etc. It gives them a very smooth application nature.
Beeswax is also used in many other products such as crayons and pastel colors because it makes it easy for the kids to play with these colors. They are also not harmful to the kids because it is not harsh on our skin.
Next is bee venom and It comes from the sting that bees have. They used to sting us when we tried to harm them and its reaction can be fatal. But now people use it in many different ways such as a few skin therapies and medicines.
Now, bee pollen comes into play, as it finds use in many different products due to its beneficial properties. People use it to treat many skin conditions, even in kids, because it is safe for everyone. Many medicines use it, and the beauty industries also use it for many different purposes. The beekeepers collect it from the bees and they use a particular technique to do that. We will discuss it soon in this article only.
10. What Is Pollen?
When we think of bees or honey of flowers etc. the first thing that comes to our mind is pollen grains and almost all of us have already read it in our school textbooks. The pollen grains are found in the insides of all the flowers and it is one of the reproductive organs. The pollen in a pretty flower is produced by the male reproductive organ of the flower.
The bees along with all the other aspects of our environment help to transfer the pollen safely from the male part to the female reproductive part to help the fertilization process. When bees sit on a flower to suck pollen greens, some of it sticks to their bodies and when they fly they spread it in the air. Pollen grains provide nutrients and minerals to them and that helps them to survive and work properly.
Here is an interesting fact about pollen grains that we all need to know. The color of the pollen grains depends on the color of the flower and it is available in all kinds of colors that one can think of. But the properties of the different coloured pollen are almost the same.
11. How Bee Pollen Is Collected by Beekeepers?
We talked about the bee pollen earlier in this article but it was not enough so here we will talk about it in more detail. Bee pollen comes from the furry bodies of the honey bees. When they go to collect pollen grains from the flowers they need to sit on it and during this process some of the pollen sticks to their bodies. They have hairy bodies to help and process. Some of the pollen gets spread in the air but some stays on their bodies when they go back to their hives.
The beekeepers put a shell around the beehive and left a few spaces in the middle of it for the entrance of the bees. When they come back to their hives and enter through those tiny holes, the pollen grains sticking to their bodies fall. Only the beekeepers can do it because they are experts in it but if we try to do that we might get hurt in the process.
The beekeepers collect the pollen grains in a bucket set right below the shell they apply. The bee pollen has many properties to help human beings that’s why it is really important for us. It helps us to cure diabetes to some extent and it has antioxidant properties which can help us in many possible ways. It can be very expensive to get because it takes time to collect it and it can only be done by honey bees. This is a long process to collect a sufficient amount of bee pollen and it has many health benefits so that’s why it is very expensive for us to get.
12. Final Note
In this article, we talked about honey bees they are tiny insects in our environment along with many other insects. There are a lot of species available of honey bees all around the world but they have the same function to collect pollen and form honey. Every beehive has only one queen bee and its main role is to do the reproduction and maintain all the parts of the beehive.
The male honey bees are only used for reproduction purposes with the queen bee. The other female bees have the role of leaving the nest every day to collect pollen from the flowers. They also protect the hive from the attack of other insects.
The shape of the nest is oval and it consists of multiple hexagon cells in it. These cells serve the purpose of keeping the larvae in them until they become bees. They also store their food in these cells and seal it with wax. They are the only insects on the planet to overproduct substances and this way we can also consume these goods.
People get honey, wax, and many other products from them and they have a lot of benefits for our health and well-being. We also talked about how we can use honey to cure cough in everyone including kids and its benefits to replace the white sugar with it.
We also learned that pollen is available in many different colours but it has also the same properties. Bee pollen has many benefits and we have talked about it in this article along with many other things.
Last Updated on by Moumilife
