Bee Colonies

1. By: Alanna Stephens Bee Colonies

2. The Beehive • A beehive is an enclosed structure where honey bees live and raise their young. • Average of 55,000 bees in a single colony

3. Structure of the Hive • Natural or Artificial • Natural: • Nest created in a natural environment • Hollow Trees, Rock /Cave Cavities, or other natural formations • Artificial: • Langstroth- Most common beehive, invented in 1860 by Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth • Wood or Plastic containers

4. How we get the honey, honey. • The bee produces saliva containing digestive enzymes that help break down food. • The saliva helps change nectar into honey, for a more digestible form.

5. The Queen • She does not work or sting. • Only responsibility is to mate with male bees to lay eggs. • Average of 2,000 eggs per day • 5 to 6 eggs in a mintue • Live 3-5 years; average bee life 4-9 month (winter) & only 6 weeks (summer)

6. The Workers • Social Insects • All female but are unable to reproduce • The worker bees sequentially take on a series of specific chores during their lifetime: housekeeper; nursemaid; construction worker; grocer; undertaker; guard; and finally, after 21 days they become a forager collecting pollen and nectar. • Population • Summer months: 60,000-80,000 • Winter months: 20,000-30,000

7. Drone BeesMale Bees • These male bees are kept on standby during the summer for mating with a virgin queen. Because the drone has a barbed sex organ, mating is followed by death of the drone. There are only 300-3,000 drones in a hive. The drone does not have a stinger. Because they are of no use in the winter, drones are expelled from the hive in the autumn.

8. Buzz, Buzz, Buzz • The bee is a insect that goes through complete metamorphosis. • This means that an insect passes through four separate stages of growth, as embryo, larva, pupa, and imago.

9. What If.. • Bees help pollinate around 70% of all the crops on the planet. If all the bees die and nothing rises to replace them (another type of insect, for example, or serious human intervention), many plants will simply die-off due to lack of pollination. If 70% of the plants on the planet die. • Without bees, there would be no honey, but distinctively, certain plants would not be able to reproduce and would thus become extinct. In turn, this would lead to the disappearance of certain animal species. • ''If the bee became extinct, man would only survive a few years beyond it'', Einstein predicted...

10. Factually Information • Certain types of bee`s can only string once,then dies. • The stinger will pump poison into skin until removed. • Bees can see all colors except red. • Only insect that produces food that humans eat. • A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg of honey.(2.2 lbs.) • Each honey bee colony has a unique odour for members' identification.

11. Sources: • http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Beekeeping-Hive---Natural-Vs-Artificial&id=5547469(Structure of the Hive) • http://www.backyardbeekeepers.com/facts.html(Queen) • http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_will_happen_if_bees_become_extinct#ixzz1tdMyUH9V (What If..) • http://www.pestworldforkids.org/bees.html (Facts)