What’s the Buzz?

Nature 5 Minutes

Are honey bees as busy as they say?  Do they really dance? How do they make honey?  Let’s find out!

A colony is a group of bees that live and fly together. One colony can contain around 20,000 to 60,000 bees. The colony is divided into three groups; a queen, who will lay eggs to bring the next generation of bees to the hive; drones, male bees whose only function is to mate with the queen; workers, the female bees responsible for everything else…lol. They collect the pollen and nectar, circulate and clean the air in the hive, tend to the queen and build and protect that hive.

Queen

During the winter season, a productive queen will form a new colony by laying eggs within each cell inside a honeycomb. She lays one egg after every 45 seconds resulting in around 2500 eggs in a day.  Compared to other insects and other honey bees, the queen bee has a longer lifespan, because she is the one to bring the next generations of bees. In her 2-3 years of life, she may lay up to 2500 eggs per day, so in her lifetime, she will have produced over 1 million offspring. As she ages, her productivity declines though she can live up to 5 years. Mature queen bees have larger body sizes, because of their long abdomen containing several ovaries, enabling them to produce a lifetime’s supply of eggs. This length also enables her to cement an egg into the bottom of a honey comb cell.  If the queen is absent, honey bees will notice that absence within a span of one hour. After a few hours of agitation, emergency cells are constructed on existing worker larvae. The worker larvae is built for a new comb and fed royal jelly to enable its fast growth and development into a new queen.

Drone Bees

Male bees, called drones, exist to mate with the queen.  After that happens, they die. Tough life.

Worker Bees

Worker bees teach younger members how to make honey at an early age. They are first made to fly miles away from the hive, and then taught how to gather nectar and pollen from blooming flowers. Young honey bees then fly with the collected nectar back to the hive.  In the hive, worker bees make them chew up the nectar and then deposit that into honeycomb wax cells. They then fan their wings vigorously over the nectar to dehydrate the liquid inside in the cells. This will transform a slightly thin liquid into very thick honey. Once they have mastered this art, they officially start producing honey like other worker bees.

Honey Bees actually will perform a ‘waggle dance’ to share information about the best food sources. They move in a figure-eight and waggle their body to indicate the direction of the food source, distance to patches of flowers and to new-site locations with other members of the colony. Nectar is carried by scooping it in a special sac behind the bee’s leg. In order to make one pound of honey, 556 worker bees must fly to around 2 million flowers to gather nectar and pollen. In their lifespan of 6-8 weeks, worker bees have to fly approximately 90,000 miles, equivalent to 1½ times the earth’s circumference in search of quality pollen and nectar, to produce that one pound of honey.  Amazingly, in one collection trip, 50-100 flowers are pollinated. And only 4 species of honey bees are kept for producing honey: the Apis melifera, meliponines, Apis lithohermaea and Apis nearctica.

Basic Honey Bee Facts

Your basic honey bee has 170 odorant receptors that enable it to recognize its relative’s signals, social communication within the hive and recognition of odor for finding food. Their sense of smell is so precise (and 50 times more powerful than a dog), that they can recognize different floral varieties when looking for pollen and nectar. Pheromones released by the honey bees together with compounds building up the nest wax, such as fatty acids and carbohydrates, make up the volatile mixture of odor. A honey bee’s odor helps it to determine its own colony, and distinguish between nest mates and foreign bees so they can identify intruders from other species. The sense of smell of a honey bee is so sensitive that carbon dioxide released from human breath may smell threatening to them, stimulating them to sting…so no heavy breathing around bees!

Honey bees rarely sleep; they work the whole day and night. When they want to sleep, they take shifts inside the hive. Their sleep pattern changes with their age. The younger bees will sleep a lot less while the older bees will sleep more than the younger bees. Older bees need more sleep because it helps their memory.  Honey bees will hardly work when the temperatures are below 57⁰F or above 100⁰F. When the temperature is below 55⁰F, they can’t fly. They can only fly when the temperatures are between 55⁰F and 60⁰F. On extremely hot days, they will cluster outside unshaded hives because too much shade makes them irritable, especially in the summer.

A honey bee has two barbed lancets on its stinger, that if it stings you with it, it is unable to pull it back. Due to this fact, not only the stinger is left behind, but part of his abdomen, digestive tract, muscles and nerves are also left. This results into a massive abdominal rupture that kills the bee. Honey bees have three simple eyes called ocelli and two large compound eyes. They use their ocelli eyes to detect light intensity. The other two large eyes are used for detecting movement.

Honey bees belong in the hymenopterans family, therefore have four wings. Their wings are arranged in two pairs, connected by a row of hooks called hamulus on the back wing. Although their wings help in flight, the fore wings are much larger than the hind wings. Apart from flight, the fore wings are also used as a cooling mechanism. The hind wings are used for flight and fanning away heat from the hive.  The sound of a honey bee is called a buzz. This is their trademark sound, which is created as a result of rapid beating of their wings. They flap their wings 200 times per second, creating vibrations in the air that result into the sound perception called buzzing.

Have you ever wondered why beekeepers wear white overalls? Honey bees dislike dark colors probably because they came to realize that most of the honey predators, bears and other animals, have dark colors. Dark colors make them defensive of their sweet honey. Therefore, beekeepers wear white colors to decrease their chances of being stung.  Studies have proven that honey bees have the ability to recognize human faces and remember them for at least two days. It is said that they have a better memory of remembering faces than some humans. Honey bees are lovers of caffeine and can get hooked on caffeine like people. Studies reveal that honey bees love caffeine because it boosts their long-term memory.

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Published by pat frederick

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184 thoughts on “What’s the Buzz?”

  4. Yeah! My 3rd bloom popped on the Vinca vine and the other one has a bud on it now. I am also seeing new leaf growth on the sad little red Clematis plant – progress!!!! It will go into somewhat of a dormant period this winter with just the weak winter sun in my BR but should pop off well next spring. Crossing my fingers!

    Sigh…..why are Orioles so stupid???? Sheesh! The males especially simply couldn’t figure out how to get inside the cage to get the jelly – the alum pans used to be right up against the bars, the dish isn’t. I think the plastic on the edges all the way around the bowl put them off, too, so adjustments were made. It is now just the steel rod and the bowl of jelly – no cage, no cover, wide open – and I cut the plastic shower cap I used to line the dish so it is not ON the rim of the bowl but just under the top inside edge. SMH – this is a full time job, guys!!!!

    Oh, and I had to move the barrel cukes again…..not getting ENOUGH morning sun so I pulled it over underneath the ash tree – it will get full morning sun but shade thru the day until 4’ish in the afternoon. My vines on the east end, however, are slammed with blooms everywhere and growing like wildfire. Just picked one and 4 more on the vines growing.

    Peaches – you didn’t honestly think I would wait until Friday, did you?…..changing color a lot now but not getting noticeably bigger….well, one or two, maybe, but…..Little Man has not been back and that is just fine by me! My neighbors are rich – they can afford to take care of him!

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Last year, I had tons and tons – I gave away 5-6 every week…..that was from only 4 vines!!!! But it’s on the east end, THE perfect place for cukes. Cukes, squash and cantaloupe were the 3 things I dug up that whole area for a couple of years ago. I’ll do cukes and cantaloupe again next year (I refuse to cave to those danged rabbits!), maybe one squash plant.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. I’m no good on store-bought ones – I know they are coated with some chemical and they are supposed to be washed first….which I never did. The ones I grow are easy-peasy – tug lightly on the vine where it meets the fruit – if it comes off easily, it’s ready! They are much more aromatic, too! That warm, ripe smell is yummy!

            Liked by 1 person

      2. It is said that there are areas of the country where people make sure to lock their doors when they park….lest they find a bag of the neighbor’s zucchini on their passenger seat when they return.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. cleveland presents a synopis of the abuse of the legal system and why we shouldn’t trust them anymore…
    FTA
    This synopsis barely scratches the surface of the duplicity and lies advanced by the FBI and the DOJ to destroy a Lieutenant General and a CIA source, all to “get Trump.” And the courts tolerated the abuse.

    So, no, Americans do not need to wait for Garland or Wray to explain the basis for the raid; and we do not need to defer to the court that issued the warrant. The same deep state willing to lie and connive to destroy a presidential campaign and the president will be willing to do so again to destroy a former president and potential future presidential candidate.

    The lesson has been learned. The question now is what to do, besides dismantling FBI Headquarters.

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/09/search-warrant-or-not-americans-wont-believe-the-fbi-raid-on-trumps-florida-home-was-justified/

    Liked by 1 person

  9. DC Appeals court rules irs must hand over REALPOTUS’s tax returns. full court press
    FTA
    The Internal Revenue Service must hand over former President Trump’s tax returns to a House committee, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, dismissing a long-running legal challenge to block tax officials from complying with a request for the records from Democratic lawmakers.

    A three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously sided with the Biden administration and the House Ways and Means Committee, ruling against Trump’s arguments against the committee’s authority, his privacy concerns and his claim that complying with the request would be unconstitutional.

    https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/irs-ordered-to-turn-over-trump-tax-returns-to-democrats/

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Scott wants to ban all ccp purchases of land in america
    FTA
    In North Dakota, a Chinese firm purchased 300 acres a few miles from a U.S. Air Force base, which reportedly is home to America’s most sophisticated military drone technology. The base also has been called “the backbone of all U.S. military communications across the globe.” Similarly, in Texas, a former Chinese military official purchased over 130,000 acres on the U.S.-Mexico border conspicuously close to Laughlin Air Force Base.

     As young Americans move off family farms and their aging parents increasingly retire from the business, China could buy even more. Millions of acres are expected to change hands in the next decade. We must ensure they don’t fall into the clutches of the Chinese Communist Party.

     But the communists aren’t just capturing American agricultural land – they’ve also bought an astonishing amount of American real estate. Between 2010 and 2020, the American Realtors Association estimates that Chinese nationals bought over $200 billion worth of American real-estate, more than any other country in the world.

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ban-chinese-communist-land-purchases-us-now

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  11. obummer’s admin engaged in wholesale destruction of records…you don’t say. when is HIS raid?
    FTA
    In the middle of directing the difficult task of transferring the historically important records of the Obama administration into the National Archives, the archivist in charge, David Ferriero, ran into a serious problem: A lot of key records are missing.

    A first-rate librarian, Ferriero has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves.

    To support this effort, in 2014 President Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments. For the first time electronic government records were placed under the 1950 Federal Records Act. The new law also included updates clarifying “the responsibilities of federal government officials when using non-government email systems” and empowering “the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal.” Additionally, it gives the Archivist of the United States the final authority in determining just what is a government record.

    And yet the accumulation of recent congressional testimony has made it clear that the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and “loss” of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges. So far, former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Lynch and several EPA officials have been named as offenders. The IRS suffered record “losses” as well. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy called it “an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws.”

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/06/10/crisis_at_the_national_archives_137241.html

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  12. Pat, this is the entire Brandon Straka video – it goes into how it all happened in the first place. He was a scheduled speaker for the rally that had been planned on the EAST side of the Capitol, not the side where all the damage was done. He stood at the top of the steps, outside the OPEN doors of the Capitol, and gave an 8 minute pre-arranged speech. Two weeks later, he was arrested and taken to jail!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. thanks!
      i will try to watch in the morning…
      I didn’t watch any of the videos I planned to this morning…the headlines changed all that…

      Liked by 1 person

  13. seeing some interesting stuff being bandied about. some claim REALPOTUS cannot run or be elected if he is found guilty of anything–including mishandling of classified documents.
    the other side claims that the Constitution sets the qualifications for President, And congress, no matter what laws they pass, cannot change that. (if they could, dems would pass laws saying no republican ever could be president.)

    Liked by 1 person

    2. OK – from PolitiFact but I agree….he can run unless he were to be convicted of

      “The U.S. Constitution says presidential candidates must be citizens and residents of the United States for at least 14 years and at least 35 years old. It does not state that a criminal indictment or conviction prevents someone from running for president.

      A separate section of the Constitution bans federal office holders who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” It was a condition added after the Civil War, but using it to keep today’s candidates off the ballot is a long shot.

      Some state laws and constitutions bar felons from running for office, but that’s for state or local offices only.”
      ——————–
      I disagree 100% with this source on the true meaning of “natural born citizen,” but otherwise….

      EXCERPT: “For guidance, Hamilton, Madison, and the other framers analyzed the histories of democracies since antiquity to identify what had led to their demise. They concluded that excessive political factionalism and the rise of corruption, incompetence, and demagoguery on the part of the executive were usually at fault. “Remember, democracy never lasts long,” Adams wrote. “It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” The American solution, as reflected in the Constitution, is an executive powerful enough to be effective but checked enough to prevent tyranny. In a 1788 letter to Marquis de Lafayette, Washington wrote of the American presidency, “It will at least be a recommendation to the proposed constitution that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny … than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed.”

      In setting the minimum age of 35 for serving as president, compared to 30 for senators and 25 for representatives, the framers of the Constitution implemented their belief that the person holding the nation’s highest elected office should be a person of maturity and experience. As early Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story noted, the “character and talent” of a middle-aged person are “fully developed,” allowing them a greater opportunity to have experienced “public service” and to have served “in the public councils.”
      ——————–
      While a member of Congress need only be an “inhabitant” of the state he or she represents, the president must have been a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years. The Constitution, however, is vague on this point. For example, it does not make clear whether those 14 years need to be consecutive or the precise definition of residency. On this, Justice Story wrote, “by ‘residence,’ in the Constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicile in the United States.”

      https://www.thoughtco.com/requirements-to-serve-as-president-3322199

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Ooops….treason or “engaged in insurrection or rebellion, against the (Constitution), or given aid and comfort to the enemy.”
        —————-
        Convicted felons have run for president in the past. Lyndon LaRouche was convicted in 1988 of tax and mail fraud conspiracy and ran for president multiple times between 1976 and 2004. LaRouche first ran as part of the Labor Party and later as a Democrat.

        Eugene Debs was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for an anti-war speech then ran for president as a socialist from a federal prison in Alabama in 1920. Debs’ supporters handed out campaign buttons for “Prisoner 9653.” The candidate who beat Debs, William Harding, commuted Debs’ 10-year sentence.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. That dates back to the Civil War. The 14th Amendment is being incorrectly applied by a modern interpretation of “natural born citizen.” Other than that, only 2 Amendments have been passed in that regard:

            “These requirements have been modified twice. Under the 12th Amendment, the same three qualifications were applied to the vice president of the United States. The 22nd Amendment limited office holders to two terms as president.”

            Liked by 1 person

        1. thanks!
          I refuse to buy anything from etsy. I used to, then when blm bs hit the “virtue” list, etsy sent out emails supporting blm as a company–and the whole email was trash.
          I ditched them then. i don’t need someone preaching to me either

          Liked by 1 person

  18. Huh….this is interesting….

    Liked by 1 person

        1. no, it doesn’t and it’s exhausting…it’s meant to be.
          at some point, we have to stop playing defense and go on the offensive. or this shit never will stop

          Liked by 1 person

  20. Entire Article @ EmeraldRobinson on Substack:

    “Two weeks ago, I warned my readers (on Substack of course) that Democrats were preparing to arrest President Trump on bogus charges to stop him from winning the 2024 election. As I wrote in that article on July 27th: “Democrats were hoping to dent Trump’s popularity with the January 6th Unselect Committee televised hearings but nobody’s watching it (outside Washington) and nobody cares. Since that gambit has failed, Democrats seem to think that arresting President Trump on bogus charges and trying him in a kangaroo court is their only remaining option.”

    The primary election results in Arizona only accelerated the process. Trump-endorsed candidates ran the table against the GOP establishment. There was an attempted steal in Maricopa County against Kari Lake that was partially thwarted, I am told, because she won every other county in Arizona and the number of manufactured votes needed would indicate a 125% voter participation rate in Maricopa County.

    The disgraced Mike Pence and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey both endorsed Kari Lake’s primary opponent Karrin Taylor Robson — and it didn’t matter. Pinal County “ran out of ballots” on Election Day and mailed 63,000 mail-in ballots to the wrong voters — and it didn’t matter. Maricopa County erected a covered fence around their counting center to prepare for the steal — and it didn’t matter.

    The 2020 election playbook was just too obvious this time. Too many people noticed. Too many angry voters showed up in front of Maricopa County’s election offices to protest. There was no way to explain why Maricopa needed two more days than every other county in Arizona to count its primary votes. The old playbook didn’t work.

    This has created widespread panic in Washington. For sheer comic absurdity, nothing compares to Dick Cheney complaining that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the American Republic — since Dick Cheney used to be the greatest threat to the American Republic. You might even call it: the ultimate compliment.

    The FBI suddenly raided President Trump’s house in Florida and carried away “boxes of documents and materials” last night because something had to be done. Trump’s candidates are running the table on the empty suits fielded by the corrupt uni-party: the score is currently 173 -14. John Gibbs beat Peter Meijer in Michigan. Joe Kent defeated six-term representative Jaime Herrera Beutler in Oregon.

    The Deep State has seen enough. What happens in Wisconsin, if Republicans actually dismantle the Democrat-run elections commission? What happens if Kari Lake and Mark Finchem and Abraham Hamadeh get elected and start investigations of the 2020 election results? What happens if America’s elections can no longer be rigged by the national security state?

    The United States is no longer a constitutional republic — but you knew that already if you’ve been paying any attention at all. The idea that the FBI should raid the home of a former president because some “records are missing from the archives” — Trump’s not fully in compliance with the Presidential Records Act! — is a charge so thin that it might as well be anorexic. We have long since passed the stage at which any excuses can be made for our national security state “public servants.” The mask has slipped. They mean to be our hidden rulers — they mean to pick and choose America’s public officials and politicians for the public — permanently.

    The Biden regime is a tyranny, but it’s one that still needed the make-up and dress of a democracy to survive. Our election system is rigged, but our “selected” public officials were still desperate to hide the cheating. No more.

    The FBI and the DOJ just crossed the Rubicon. The Biden regime is going to arrest its political opponents on fabricated charges to avoid defeat in future elections. The Democrats are seizing power — and they don’t care if you notice now.

    Welcome to the Banana Republic of Biden.”

    Posted by DJT today on TruthSocial:

    Liked by 1 person

  22. from some dudes open on Dan Bongino discussing the raid…2 presidents, different standards
    FTA
    CTH phone lines are burning up with reaction to the FBI raid on the home of former President Donald Trump. I will have much more to say on this national escalation of weaponized justice department tactics later. Keep in mind that former President Obama removed every single document related to his administration from the office to a warehouse in Chicago and then his team selected the material for the national archives.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/08/dan-bongino-on-fbi-raid-of-trump-home-this-is-some-third-world-bullshit/

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Like

  39. Bees are fascinating critters. When a beekeeper opens up a hive, it is populated by the queen and workers who have never seen the light of day — the workers bringing resources to the hive are all out collecting. The younger bees are building cells, feeding larvae, sealing the cells while the larvae pupate, and opening the cells so new workers can come out. Only after the hive’s inner needs are met are workers sent outside for outer needs — and, generally, after a lifetime of service, an older bee will just not come back from gathering.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. have you ever kept bees?
      we got to see a natural hive split when we moved up here…it was in the field where they were offloading the logs for our home. when the crane operator spotted it, he shut everything down and we all watched. it was fascinating!

      Like

      1. We took classes. A quick analysis of our house for optimal bee habitat would have been right in the way of people — e.g. next to the driveway. I’m ready to do it after I move.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. cool!!!
          in the neighbor’s field he has several box hives that he rents during pollination season to the local orchards and nurseries. the creek we have to cross to get to the road is right there as a water source for them…

          Like

    2. I missed your post at wolf’s–you got robbed??? I am just picking up bits and pieces…can you direct me to what day I should look at for the story?
      gees…are you and your finacee okay????

      Like

      1. I got burgled at 4:25 am in a storage unit on our driveway. There was no personal contact. That was on 8/4.

        We’re OK, and it was only my stuff that was taken.

        One of the annoying things was the thief opened a box, pulled stuff out, decided it wasn’t his thing, and discarded the box and the stuff inside the unit. Since I had weighed all the boxes while loading, if I found box and stuff, I could put it back together and know I was fine — but it makes it slow and difficult to find out what was lost.

        The thief wore nitrile gloves throughout, so there were no fingerprints. I had about 5,000 pounds of stuff inside the unit, so it’s hard to verify the stuff underneath.

        Liked by 1 person

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