In order to produce 1 kg of honey, bees need to bring 3-4 kg of nectar into the hive, which depends on the content of moisture in the air and nectar. The bee sucks about 0.02 mg of nectar from one flower.
One bee visits about 10 flowers per minute, and one trip from the hive lasts about 10 minutes. That means that during one flight, the bee visits about 100 flowers. Outside the hive the bee works 6-7 hours a day. During that time, it makes about 40 flights and visits about 4000 flowers.
Today’s high-speed computer counts 16 billion operations per second. The bee’s brain counts 600 times faster than the fastest computer.
The Lifespan Of Bees
The lifespan of bees during summer does not exceed 50-60 days, but during winter they live longer than 5 months.
In summer, about 1000 worker bees die in each hive every day, but more are born every 24 hours. The young queen bee lays more than 2000 eggs a day.
The effect of working bees in collecting nectar is greater when pasture is near and flights are shorter. If the pasture is 1 km away from the apiary, the bees will return to the hive with a full load in 3-5 minutes, while flying 3 km in 20-25 minutes. For 1 kg of hones, bees should bring about 140,000 loads of nectar.
For the processing of 1 kg of nectar, a space is needed in which 2.5-3 kg of honey could be placed. In nectar there is 40-80% of water which needs to be reduced to 18% as it is found in mature honey.
The bee can fly away from the hive almost 8 km and will find its way back without a mistake. However, the useful working distance of the bee should not exceed 2 km.
Flying with no load carriage the bee develops a speed of 65 km per hour. In one minute it flies over 1 km. Loaded with nectar and pollen, the bee reduces its flight speed to 18-36 km per hour, depending on the direction of the wind. The bee consumes 0.43 mg of sugar contained in the nectar per 1 km of road.
During flight the wing of the bee makes over 400 swings per second.
The average length of a bee’s tongue is 6-7 mm.
At the time of maximum laying, the queen bee can lay 1500 eggs a day, the weight which exceeds the weight of the queen bee itself.
A three-day-old egg is magnified 6 times in 9 minutes.
A newly hatched bee larva weighs 0.65 mg at the end of the first day of life, 4.7 mg on the second, 24.6 mg on the third, 94.7 mg on the fourth, 157.6 mg on the fifth. On the sixth day the weight reduces to 155 mg.
The act of laying eggs lasts from 9 to 12 seconds.
The best temperature for storing honey is between 10 and 14 degrees Celsius with a relative humidity of 55 to 80%.
False bee queens appear throughout the beekeeping season.
In sparse grazing and high heat, the queen bee can be encouraged to be more active by feeding it with dry crystalized sugar.
The queen bee is capable of mating after 3-4 days of life, and the drone at 12 days of life.
Bee honey consists of 41% fruit, 34% grape, and 1-2% cane sugar, 18% water, and 6% other substances (organic acids, minerals, vitamins, antibiotics, etc.).
Bees remove water by distributing drops of nectar to honeycomb cells and moving them from cell to cell several times until excess water evaporates.
In favorable conditions, the bees of one colony can collect up to 2 kg of flower pollen in 7 days.
For a flight period of 20 days, the bee is able to bring 6-8 gr of nectar from which 3-4 gr of honey is obtained.
Several loads of pollen in the baskets of the back legs of the bee weigh 10-25 mg. One worker cell fits 18-25 such loads, which is about 450 mg. A well filled frame can contain 2-3- kg of pollen.
In spring, 70% of bees bring water into the hive, 20% bring nectar, and 10% pollen.
According to the knowledge of beekeeping science and practice, the consumption of honey in certain months is as follows: October 0.9 kg, November 0.9 kg, December 1.0 kg, January 1.2 kg, February 2.5kg, and March 3 kg.
When the first queen bee comes out of the queen cell, she goes to other queen cells, destroys them and stabs them with its bee sting, thus killing its rivals. In that act, the queen bee is helped by worker bees as well. If two queen bees hatch, the stronger kills the weaker one. However, during swarming, several queen bees can appear in one colony.
It has been proven that bees play an irreplaceable role in plant pollination, where significantly higher yields of seeds, fruits and vegetables are achieved. The fruits are more beautiful in appearance, more regular in shape, contain more sugar, vitamins, microelements, proteins, minerals, etc.
