Although all insects are important in the balance of nature the Honey Bee is of great value to mankind. A 1999 Cornell University study concluded that the direct value of Honey Bee pollination to U.S. Agriculture is over $15 Billion. This dollar amount is a 56.7% increase from 1989!

It takes 556 worker honey bees flying 35,854 miles, making 80,000 trips, visiting 2 million flowers to produce just 1 pound of honey!

About one-third of the total human diet is derived directly or indirectly from insect pollinated plants of which 80% is accomplished by Honey Bees! Aren’t Honey Bees great?

Honey bee trivia…

• A Honey bee has 4 wings
• A Honey bee has 5 eyes
• All of the worker bees in a hive are female
• A Honey bee flies 15 M.P.H.
• A Queen Honey bee begins her life as an ordinary female worker larvae, but by being fed Royal Jelly, she develops into a queen.
• The Honey bee is the only insect that produces food consumed by humans.
• A male or Drone bee has no father but a grandfather on his mothers side. His only purpose is to fertilize a virgin queen.
• The Queen Honey bee lays approximately 2,000 eggs a day during warm weather.
• Each worker bee will only produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey and 1/80th of a teaspoon of beeswax during her life.
• During summer months there are 50-70,000 bees in each colony of which only a few hundred are male bees and only ONE QUEEN!
• Each year it takes 1 million colonies of honey bees to pollinate California’s Almond groves!