Honey bees are insects belonging to Hymenoptera; these friendly insects lead a social life and hence they are categorized into three functional groups – Queen, male honey bees and thousands of female workers. Actually these female workers work for their entire society travelling distances to bring nectar. Its body parts include a head, body and abdomen. Its eyes and sense of touch are situated in head. Proboscis – the tongue that sucks nectar and Mandibles – that cuts wax are present in its face structure.

Its life cycle includes egg, larvae, pupae and adult stage. Queen is the head of a bee structure. All activities are centralized with the release of pheromones. Only queen has the ability to reproduce while worker females are always engaged in working for the whole family. Males are lazy too! Workers make wax to build honey comb structure and collect nectar and pollen grains. Males are formed from the unfertilized eggs and their function is to unite with queen to reproduce next set of workers and queen. So, only queens are able to sustain their race and before new set of queens and workers hatch out, they leave the place in search of a new location. Then they will build a new home structure.

In addition to honey, honey bees produce a few more useful things – wax, pollens, royal jelly, poison and propolis. Wax is the complex substance produced by honey bees to build their homes. This wax can be used to make polish, ink, varnish and gums. Pollen grains collected by honey bees is an abundant source of nutrition and is used for many medicinal purposes. Milk of honey bee known as royal jelly is released by young bees below 20 days. It is released by a gland in the head and is believed that, if consumed regularly your longevity will increase for sure. Honey poison is an excellent medicine for diseases like arthritis. This poison is released from abdomen of bees and the treatment is known as Apitherapy. Bees collect stains from trees and then mix with their wax to produce propolis. It’s used for healing wounds as well as preparing beauty products.     

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On April 02, 2013lView All Articles

Natural honey is good for kids. Use it as sugar substitute

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honey , honey bees , female worker bees , honey bees produce