Hobbies And Interests
A Social Insect
The honeybee is a rare social insect. It lives in a colony maintained by castes of bees. The queen is considerably larger than the other bees: she can be from .63 to .8 inches long. Her job is to lay eggs, and she will lay 15,000 a day until she is old and spent. The queen, the larvae and the hive are tended by the workers, a caste of sterile females about .5 inches long. Drones are males whose only purpose is to mate with virgin queens. They are from .6 to .63 inches long and noted for their large eyes. Unlike most other male insects the very act of mating kills them. If they don't have a chance to mate they're stung by the worker bees and their bodies dumped out of the hive.
Working
The worker honeybee's life is devoted to the colony. Most insects don't live in colonies this way. Worker bees spend the earlier part of their lives working in the colony and caring for eggs, larvae, pupae and the queen and doing general housekeeping like cleaning the combs, ventilating the hive by buzzing their wings, evaporating nectar and storing honey. Pollen and nectar gathering are done at the very end of the bee's life, and she will only live a few days after beginning this task. Worker bees are also different from other insets in that they build their hives from waxy combs secreted from wax glands. Workers also protect the hive. They're able to sting but it costs them their lives, for they are eviscerated in the act of stinging. Most other stinging insects, like wasps and ants, can sting repeatedly. Bees are also the only insects that can sustain such a large group of individuals over several seasons on the food they store. Even other social insects like wasps die over the winter and have to rebuild their colonies during the warm weather.
Communication
Honeybees communicate by ways of pheromones. They give off alarm odors when they sting, which causes other bees to come to the colony's defense, but unlike other insects they also have a language. Worker bees communicate the source of pollen and nectar by way of a waggle dance. This tells other workers exactly where to go. No other insect is known to do this waggle dance.
Economy
No insect is more important to human beings than the honeybee. Humans have been keeping bees for thousands of years. Other insects might supply silk or shellac or help pollinate plants, but honeybees pollinate billions of dollars of agricultural crops around the world. Hives are moved from pasture to pasture in order to help pollinate fruit trees and cereals. Honeybees also produce honey, wax, pollen, propolis and royal jelly.