The fascinating facts about bees just might make your brain buzz
After I spoke somewhere, a gentleman told me he was a beekeeper.
"Bees are the most amazing creatures in the world," he said. "Look them up."
I did. And now, whenever I hear a bee buzzing, I smile. It is the sound of one of creation's truly awesome marvels. Did you know those wings are beating more than 190 times a second? Try that with your arms.
When the bumblebee lands on one of a few hundred flowers in our yard, the buzzing changes. Because it is now chewing bumble gum (not true.) Pollen is locked inside some flowers, so the bee wraps itself around the flower and vibrates at a precise frequency, close to middle C. This passcode unlocks the pollen, which lands on the bee's body. Bee-ootiful.
The honey bee colony is remarkably complex. The queen bee lays the eggs: about three a minute. Worker bees work. Drones mate with the queen. There are guard bees. Waxmaker bees. Wanna bees. Zom bees. (Okay, those last two, I made up.) Nurse bees care for the sick and injured, feeding them special types of honey, depending on the ailment.
If it's too cool, temperature bees vibrate to raise their body temp and warm the air. Too hot? They place water droplets throughout the hive and fan their wings to cool things down.
Where did they learn all this? Did they take a course?
A bee will produce only a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. For a kilogram of honey (about two pounds), bees will fly three times around the world. Then use the air miles to buzz off on vacation in Sting-apore. (Sorry. I'll beehive myself.)
Honey bees are equipped with a special organ called a honey stomach. (Those who eat too much become a little chub-bee.) Nectar is sucked into the honey stomach, mixed with enzymes, and then vomited into a honeycomb.
Surprisingly honey is one of the purest substances on earth. It has been used to effectively clean wounds and fight infections. Jars of honey have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. "Still good," they say; "Try some in your tea."
The most curious behavior is the waggle dance. When a forager bee discovers flowers rich in nectar, it returns to the hive, gathers an audience and begins to dance to country music, walking in a straight line while waggling its body, then circling back and waggling again. (I'm kidding about the music.)
The waggle length indicates the distance of the nectar from the hive. The angle of the dance shows the direction of the nectar in relation to the sun. (Try this next time someone asks you for directions to McDonalds.)
Recently a child of ten asked me how little bees learn. "From a sylla-buzz," she said.
Could it be that God created that little bee with instincts and intelligence that makes us scratch our heads in wonder and applaud the Creator? To me, no other option makes sense.
PS: A friend has 50,000 bees. His wife says he's a keeper.
Phil Callaway is an author and the host of Laugh Again radio. Check it out at laughagain.org.
