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Honey Bee Profile

Photo retrieved from Just Bee Honey

Source: Dimensions.com

“I hum through flowers, dusted in gold — see me, and remember the earth still blooms.”

Estimated Population: Billions of Individuals (IUCN: Data Deficient)

✦ A.I-Generated Summary ▼

The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is one of the world’s most important pollinators, sustaining ecosystems and agriculture through tireless work among flowers. Small yet extraordinarily organized, honey bees function as a unified colony, transforming nectar into honey and powering plant reproduction across the globe.

Key Points:

Diet & Lifestyle: Honey bees are herbivorous, feeding on nectar for energy and pollen for protein. They forage up to 5 km from the hive and communicate food locations through the waggle dance, ensuring efficient and coordinated collection.
Physical Traits & Adaptations: With fuzzy golden-brown bodies, pollen baskets on their hind legs, and two pairs of transparent wings, honey bees are perfectly adapted for pollination. A colony includes one queen, thousands of female workers, and seasonal drones, each with specialized roles.
Reproduction: The queen mates during a single nuptial flight and can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day. Workers develop in about 21 days, supporting a colony that may contain 10,000–60,000 individuals.
Behavior & Social Structure: Honey bees are eusocial insects operating as a “superorganism.” Workers maintain the hive, defend it, regulate temperature, and care for larvae, all guided by pheromones and complex communication.
Role In The Ecosystem: As essential pollinators, honey bees enable reproduction in countless wild plants and crops, supporting biodiversity and a significant portion of global food production.
Threats & Conservation: Globally listed as Data Deficient by the IUCN for the Western honey bee, honey bees face habitat loss, pesticides, parasites like Varroa mites, disease, and climate change. Protecting pollinator habitats and promoting sustainable practices are critical for their future. Help Protect The Honey Bee.

Final Note:
Though small in size, the honey bee carries enormous ecological weight. Safeguarding this remarkable pollinator protects the flowers, forests, and food systems that sustain life on Earth.

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14. Honey Bee Profile

Common Name: Honey Bee
Scientific Name: Apis mellifera
Genus: Apis
Family: Apidae
Order: Hymenoptera
Class: Insecta
Phylum: Arthropoda
Conservation Status: Data Deficient (IUCN – global assessment of the Western honey bee)

Physical Description

Honey bees are small, highly organized insects built for pollination and flight. They have fuzzy, golden-brown and black striped bodies that help trap pollen, along with two pairs of transparent wings and specialized hind legs designed to carry pollen baskets (corbiculae).

Length: 12 – 15 mm (workers)
Weight: ~0.1 g per worker
Wingspan: ~20 mm

Honey bees exhibit strong caste-based differences rather than simple sexual dimorphism. A colony consists of one queen (larger and fertile), thousands of female workers (smaller and sterile), and seasonal male drones whose sole role is reproduction.

Habitat

Honey bees are native to Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia but have been introduced worldwide for agriculture and honey production.

Primary habitat: Meadows, orchards, grasslands, farmlands
Occasional habitats: Forest edges, gardens, urban areas

They nest in tree cavities, rock crevices, or managed hives provided by beekeepers.

Flight & Pollination Ability

Honey bees are efficient fliers and essential pollinators.

Flight speed: ~24 km/h
Foraging range: Up to 5 km from the hive

They use a unique “waggle dance” to communicate the direction and distance of food sources to other colony members, allowing precise and coordinated foraging.

Diet

Honey bees are herbivorous and rely entirely on flowering plants.

Primary food: Nectar (for carbohydrates)
Protein source: Pollen

Nectar is converted into honey and stored as a long-term energy supply, especially for winter survival.

Behavior and Social Structure

Honey bees are eusocial insects living in highly structured colonies.

Colony size: 10,000 – 60,000 bees
Social roles: Queen (reproduction), workers (foraging, defense, hive maintenance), drones (mating)

They communicate through pheromones and complex dances, functioning as a single coordinated “superorganism.”

Fun Fact: A single honey bee produces only about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

Reproduction

The queen mates during a single nuptial flight with multiple drones and stores sperm for life.

Egg-laying rate: Up to 2,000 eggs per day
Development time: ~21 days (worker), ~16 days (queen), ~24 days (drone)

New queens are raised when a colony swarms or replaces an aging queen.

Did You Know?

Master Communicators: Honey bees use the waggle dance to map food locations.
Super Pollinators: They pollinate crops like almonds, apples, and blueberries.
Team Survival: Colonies cluster together in winter to generate heat.
Global Workforce: Managed honey bee colonies number in the tens of millions worldwide.

Role in the Ecosystem

Honey bees are among the world’s most important pollinators, supporting biodiversity and global food production. They enable reproduction in countless wild plants and agricultural crops, sustaining ecosystems and human food systems alike.

Why They're At Risk

Although globally listed as Data Deficient by the IUCN, honey bees face serious threats including habitat loss, pesticide exposure, parasites like the Varroa mite, diseases, and climate change. Wild and managed colonies alike experience population pressures, making pollinator conservation critical for ecological and agricultural stability.