BEES, NECTAR, AND POLLINATION

Honeybees

The honeybee commonly raised for production of honey and wax in many parts of the world is Apis mellifera, of Old World origin. Honeybees build nests, or combs, of wax, which is secreted by glands in the abdomen. They store honey for future use in the hexagonal cells of the comb. In the wild the nests are made in caves or hollow trees, but beekeepers provide nesting boxes, called hives. Beekeeping is called apiculture.

A typical colony consists of three castes: the large queen, who produces the eggs, many thousands of workers (sexually undeveloped females), and a few hundred drones (fertile males). At the tip of a female bee’s abdomen is a strong, sharp lancet, or sting, connected to poison glands. In the queen, who stings only rival queens, the sting is smooth and can be withdrawn easily; in the worker bee the sting is barbed and can rarely be withdrawn without tearing the body of the bee, causing it to die. The workers gather nectar; make and store honey; build the cells; clean, ventilate (by fanning their wings), and protect the hive. They also feed and care for the queen and the larvae. They communicate with one another (for example, about the location of flowers) by performing dances in specific patterns. The workers live for only about six weeks during the active season, but those that hatch (i.e., emerge from the pupa stage) in the fall live through the winter. The drones die in the fall.
A developing bee goes through the larva and pupa stages in the cell and emerges as an adult. The larva is fed constantly by the worker bees; the pupa is sealed into the cell. Fertilized eggs develop into workers; unfertilized eggs become drones. A fertilized egg may also become a queen if the larva is fed royal jelly, a glandular secretion thought to contain sex hormones as well as nutrients, until she pupates. Worker larvae receive this food only during the first three days of larval life, afterward receiving beebread, a mixture of pollen and honey. 6
When a hive becomes overcrowded a swarm may leave with the old queen and establish a new colony. The old colony in the meantime rears several new queens. The first queen that hatches stings the others to death in their cells; if two emerge at once, they fight until one is killed. Mating then occurs. A newly hatched queen is followed aloft in a nuptial flight by the drones, only one of which impregnates her, depositing millions of sperm that are stored in a pouch in her body. The drone dies, and the queen returns to the hive, where for the rest of her life (usually several years) she lays eggs continuously in the cells. 7

Importance of Bees
Bees are of inestimable value as agents of cross-pollination (see pollination), and many plants are entirely dependent on particular kinds of bees for their reproduction (such as red clover, which is pollinated by the bumblebee, and many orchids). In many cases the use of insecticides for agricultural pest control has had the unwelcome side effect of killing the bees necessary for maintaining the crop. Such environmental stresses plus several species of parasitic mites devastated honeybee populations in the United States beginning in the 1980s, making it necessary for farmers to rent bees from keepers in order to get their crops pollinated and greatly affecting the pollination of plants in the wild. Bee venom has been found to have medicinal properties. Toasted honeybees are eaten in some parts of the world. 8

Classification
Bees are classified in the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Hymenoptera, superfamily Apoidea. 9


Nectar – the sweet liquid of flowers that is the original source of honey – is used by plants to attract bees and promote cross-pollination. Flowers produce very large amounts of pollen, and have evolved in such a way that bees end up coated in pollen during their efforts to collect nectar. So as the bee moves from flower to flower in its search for food, so to does the pollen, thus propagating the flower species.
But just as flowers need bees, bees also need flowers. All of the bees’ food sources can be found in the flower, including the nectar, which gives worker bees much-needed energy; and resins, which are turned into a substance called propolis that is used to seal the beehive. Nectar is such an efficient food source that a bee could fly all the way around the world on a single ounce.

Honeybees live in hives that range in population from 30,000 to 60,000 bees. The majority of these are immature female worker bees who do the majority of the labor in the hive, including building the honeycomb, nursing the young, and foraging for nectar, water and pollen.

Worker bees transform nectar into honey inside their bodies, adding enzymes and exposing the nectar to air to dehydrate it. Their metabolism keeps the temperature of the hive at a steady 92 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which also encourages the evaporation of excess water from the honey. Once the honey is water-free and ripe, the bees cap it with a thin layer of beeswax, which allows the honey to exist as a stable food source until harvested by the bees or the beekeeper.



Bibliography
See M. Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee (1913); K. von Frisch, The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees (1965, tr. 1967); M. Lindauer, Communication Among Social Bees (rev. ed. 1971); C. Mitchener, Social Behavior of Bees (1974); F. Ruttner, Biogeography and Raxonomy of Honey Bees (1987); M. Winston, The Biology of the Honey Bee (1987); James L. and Carol Gould, The Honey Bee (1988). 10


The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001-05 Columbia University Press.

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