Latin Name: Apis mellifera L.
For centuries, human beings have been benefiting from bees with the products, like honey, bee larvae, and beeswax, they produce, as well as the services, like pollination, that we take for granted [7]. Like ants, wasps, and other insects alike, honey bees are social insects that work together and function as a colony. Unlike those other other insects, honey bees are herbivores and get their carbohydrates from honey and their protein from pollen. They also different in that they work to survive the winter months so that their colonies can live year after year. Throughout the colony, there are different castes of bees and each play an important role. There are three different castes of bees; queens, workers, and drones.
After the queen mates with the drones from alien colonies, she will lay her eggs in the beeswax, honeycomb-looking cells that were built by the workers [7]. The eggs then turn into larvae, which then turn into the inactive pupa, which then turn into the young adult. The times at which the bee transitions between these stages is dependent on the caste in which the bee falls in. This can ‘bee’ seen below. Anatomy:
Just like many other insects, honeybees have three different body sections; the head, thorax, and abdomen [8]. The exoskeleton is created from small, moveable plates of chitin, and is covered with hairs that help regulate its body temperature and collect pollen. Extremely thin pieces of exoskeleton are used for their wings. The head contains over 950,000 neurons, which allows it complete complex tasks that would usually require a larger brain. On the bee’s head, there are two antennae that are used for sensory. They also have five eyes; Three simple eyes and two compound eyes. There are 150 repeating eye parts in each of the compound eyes called ommatidia and each specialize in picking up different patterns. With this, bees are able to detect polarized light. The mouth of the bee is complex but contains three main parts. They contain paired mandibles, which are equivalent to the human jaws, and a glossa, the tongue. The third part is the labrum and the maxillae, which act like lips and are used to collect nectar. |
Queen bee:
Worker Bee:
Drone Bee:
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