Honey bee

Apis mellifera (Translated as Apis ‘bee’ / mellifera ‘honey-
bearing’ or ‘honey-making’)

Honeybees are important pollinators of flowers, fruit and
vegetables, transferring pollen from one plant to another as they
forage for nectar.

Honeybees live in large colonies with:

One Queen: who can live for about 4-5 years and who can lay up
to 2500 eggs a day in the peak of the season.

Many thousand of female ‘worker’ bees: whose jobs are foraging
for nectar, pollen and water, feeding the young bees, cleaning the
hive and guarding the colony. Workers live on average about 6
weeks during the summer, collecting about a 1/12 teaspoon of
honey in their working life.

A few hundred male ‘drones’: who fly out of the hive to fertilize
the queen bee of various colonies.

Bees can fly for up to 5km to forage for nectar and pollen at
speeds of up to 20km per hour, beating their wings approximately
200 times a second.

Honeybee colonies survive during winter months in a reduced
colony size and by clustering around the queen and using their
body heat to maintain temperature within the colony. So stores are
required to keep the colony functioning.

During Summer, nectar is brought back to the hive where it is
converted into honey primarily for the colony to store as winter
food. However any excess honey can be extracted for human
consumption.