General Study Notes Request

Bees collect pollen, nectar, water, and propolis.

Feral bee nests need a sheltered, dark enclosure, small entrance, sufficient volume, parallel comb with bee space, and separate brood and food areas.

Queens determine the egg type (drone or worker) by measuring the cell opening size with their forelegs. A 4mm opening results in a drone egg, while smaller openings result in worker eggs.

After laying eggs, the queen marks them with a pheromone.

Worker bees typically live for 5-6 weeks.

The average peak population of 60,000 bees occurs in June.

The round dance signals to other bees that food has been found within 80 meters of the hive. The dance intensity indicates food abundance.

The wagtail dance conveys the distance, direction, quality (smell/taste), and profitability (amount) of a food source to other bees.

Pollen foraging trips are shorter than nectar foraging trips, lasting between 10 and 187 minutes.

A resin collected from plant buds/trees, used as a glue-like material with antiseptic properties that bees use to seal and sanitize their hive.

A type of foraging where bees try to steal honey from other bee colonies, which can be detrimental for both colonies.

Bees use a complex dance system (round, sickle, waggle) to communicate the location and quality of food sources to other foragers.

A type of bee dance that conveys information about distance and direction of food sources by waggling movements and the angle to the sun.

More circuits in the waggle dance indicate a shorter distance to the food source

Bees can detect UV light and polarized light from the sun if it is cloudy to navigate.

Bees will first find a food source, fill up their stomachs/baskets, return to the hive remembering landmarks using specialized communication methods, which then share the information with other bees.

A communication method used by worker bees to signal the location of food sources to other bees in the hive.

A bee's thorax temperature must stay above 30 degrees Celsius for flight

Bees maintain their body temperature by contracting wing muscles.

Bees can forage actively at 8-10 degrees Celsius.

The pollen basket on a female bee's tibia used for carrying pollen.

Worker bees can collect up to 70mg of nectar, nearly their own weight.

The amount of brood (baby bees) influences a bee's desire to collect pollen.

A queen bee can lay over 200,000 eggs per year.