As a child, I was always told my name meant 'honey bee' in Greek. An archeologist friend later corrected me, placating me with the claim that the 'Mel' part comes from the Ancient Greek 'mela', meaning 'all sweetness'. In any case, it seems fitting and somewhat coincidental that my first post should concern these insects - the only ones known to produce a substance that humans can digest (that's not on the list, you can have that one for free).
I should say that my knowledge of bees is, in general, hazy at best. I would particularly like to stress that I am not some kind of bee enthusiast or amateur beekeeper. I just got dragged along to a talk by one today. Still, for what it's worth, here are 10 'fascinating' facts about bees:
I just wanted to clear that up from the outset. There is no detail to add here, given that the talk was about the honey-producing variety. The guy doing the talk mentioned bumble bees in passing and I was too embarrassed to question it. I suppose I just thought that bees were bees.
Fact No. 2: Honey bees (and probably all bees) breathe through their bottom.
Ok, strictly speaking not their 'bottom'. I actually mean their abdomen. The point here is that they don't have lungs. In fact, when you next see a bee 'in repose', you will notice that it is moving it's abdomen while it rests. This is it breathing. Look out for it next time one comes in for landing.
Fact No. 3: Bees dance to communicate.
Actually, they do a 'waggle dance' and, in all honesty, it really is fascinating. The female 'worker' bees fly around until they find some pollen or nectar (there is a difference, although again I was too embarrassed to ask, seeing as there were 10 year-olds present who were more clued up on this than me). They then fly back to the hive and waggle their arses for a specific amount of time, which denotes how far away the source of pollen or nectar actually is. By all accounts, it equates to around 1 second of 'waggling' per kilometre, although this gets less accurate the further the distance. Not only that, but the angle at which they enter the hive determines the direction in which the other bees need to fly. It has something to do with the angle they are from the sun. As I understand it, if they fly straight in from the top, then the other bees need to fly straight towards the sun (not literally, of course, just in the same direction). It is a bit more complicated than I'm making out here, but so is everything to do with bees apparently. See the illustration below, just in case you think I'm making it up:
Fact No. 4: It takes the equivalent of a trip to the moon and back to make one pot of honey.
That's it. Still, that's a lot of buzzing about.
Fact No. 5: Mama queen will only mate with boys from a different hood.
Ok. This is a blatant attempt to 'sex up' some facts about bees. However, I was interested to hear that queen bees take their one and only mating flight out and about, rather than messing with the drones in their own hive. Also, the source of these swarthy foreign bees is a mystery to all. It is known, however, that she takes in eight of them during this one trip...and that all eight die as a result. That's some holiday romance.
Fact No. 6: Drones (male bees) are just unfertilised female bees.
Not sure how that works really but, evidently, it's true. They are also pretty useless by all accounts. They have round bottoms, just in case you ever need to spot one...which you won't. They can't even sting you. Absolutely useless.
Fact No. 7: Bees build their cells in hexagons because it is the strongest geometrical shape.
They are clever like that. In fact, bees are pretty clever at working as a collective full stop (see Fact No. 10). They don't have too much control over the size of their hexagons, however. If left to their own devices, they will build hexagons of varying size, resulting in all kinds of outlandish, Guadi-ish designs, so they're not that clever after all (or are they?...)
Fact No. 8: Queen bees grow up to two inches long.
I just put this here to freak out people with a fear of bees. I have also just looked up the word for a fear of bees and, apparently, it is known as 'melissophobia'...so my parents were telling the truth all along. The moral of this story - never trust an archeologist (or Wikipedia; take your pick).
Fact No. 9: The aggressiveness of a hive depends on which male has happened to fertilise it most recently.
No suprises here I suppose, but some males are more agressive than others. The queen, as it turns out, gets deposed more regularly than you might think, so it is quite possible that mid-way through the year, your nice, friendly little hive, will be invaded by the progeny of the local hoodlum.
Fact No. 10: Bees are somehow learning how to deal with their most dangerous predator to date.
As if the 2-inch long queen bee wasn't enough to deal with, there is an 'asiatic hornet', which is FOUR TIMES the size of the average bee, winging its way across the continent as we speak. They have already reached the south of France, and it won't be long before they are here, so we were told. Aside from being oversized and horribly ugly, they like nothing more than waiting outside the hive and cutting off the heads of unsuspecting bees as they come and go. Not pretty. All is not lost, however, as the bees are fighting back. Somehow (and god only knows how these things work) bees have started to work out that the best thing to do is invite them in. After all, it isn't the bees that they want really, just their larvae. The really clever part is, once in the hive, the bees all jump on the hornet in a kind of 'bundle' reminiscent of a fight in a school playground. Apparently, bees have a slightly higher body temperature so the purpose of this act is to cause the hornet to overheat and expire. Clever huh?
In all, despite feeling less than enthusiastic about attending a talk about bees (even with the promise of a cream tea thrown in) I have now spent the best part of three hours writing about them. There is something very compelling about the little critters. Apparently bee keepers like to think of the hive like a 'brain'. There are no individuals in this brain, only collective parts...a sort of high-functioning dystopian nightmare if you like. But the honey tastes really good.
I should credit the bee talk to a guy called Mark Woollard - resident bee keeper at Whitstable Castle. The castle have started producing their own honey, which is pretty tasty, if a bit on the pricey side. It has certainly made me think about buying local honey and also explains why farm shop honey tastes so much better than the average stuff you buy in a supermarket. I just wish I had a Manuka orchard...
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