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?”

      1. he does!
        which begs the question…if he thought this was coming–as many say he must have–why not announce his candidacy–don’t they have to cease investigations into him then?
        or did he delay, knowing they were gonna do this, so the precedence could be set to raid former presidents?

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Packing almost done. Getting a trailer Friday to take the remainder with me. Going to make a trip out there Monday and come back Thursday. Ms. Mama will go with me for the hopefully final trip next Friday.

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      1. that’s where i saw the headlines…
        I always check out what he’s writing about–even if it’s just the headlines…
        it’s not about the J6 stuff…it’s about documents he took from the wh.
        some are saying he declassified them before he took them. some are sayig ultra maggot’s admin could ave “reclassified them” (can they do that?) as a way to seize them and neutralize Trump. i dunno, but i am pissed about the different treatments of us vs them

        Liked by 2 people

  5. Good morning y’all! Had a grueling past few days! Got our U-Boxes finished yesterday morning. They picked them up after lunch. Still getting a trailer Friday to get all the rest of the stuff left, like the mower. Trash runs today and laundry. Was exhausted after the weekend, sun-up to sun-down in the heat and humidity will do that. Anyhow, will take it a little easier today. Have to paint inside now that the house is emptier…

    Liked by 2 people

    1. HA…i should have scrolled down!
      hope the painting goes smoothly!
      i always end up with more on me than the walls…LOL
      hubby is a precise, clean painter tho…thank goodness!

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  23. someone made an excellent suggestion…hope a whistleblower releases the name of the judge that signed the warrant and then send protesters there every freakin’ night…sauce for the goose and all…not to be violent–just LOUD

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yeah, no, I can’t agree with that one – illegal for one is also illegal for the other. You know….that whole “two wrongs don’t equal one right” thingy……we shouldn’t lower ourselves to their level but that’s JMO.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. nope. the time for civility is at an end. THAT is precisely WHY the left continues to do what they do…the right says we can’t be like them. BULLSHIT. in a war, you return fire.

        Like

            1. I just can’t see how lowering ourselves to their subterranean level does any of us any good. It just degrades our own integrity and we become just like them? For me, that isn’t the answer. Could I stick to that principle in a war-time scenario? I can’t honestly say I would be able to do that but you never really know until the shit hits the fan and push comes to shove…..

              Liked by 1 person

              1. sometimes people can only see what their destructive behavior looks like is to put a mirror in front of them.
                otherwise you’re just enabling them to continue

                Liked by 1 person

  26. interesting comment from tcth…so they actually waited till REALPOTUS was not there…

    emet
    August 9, 2022 1:36 am
    Reply to nwtex

    The FBI did not serve the warrant when President Trump was hone, otherwise the Secret Service would have demanded they disarm before proceeding. An interesting scenario.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. hmmmm…more interesting thoughts

      Fringe Dweller
      August 9, 2022 1:09 am

      I would be a bit concerned about some new generation of listening/snooping devices getting installed all over that residence during the raid. The property can really never be used as a place for frank discussion or strategy for Trump in anything approaching the near term, until you’ve basically rebuilt the place from the floors up.

      Liked by 1 person

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  29. elias “boasting” about raid…was this HIS idea?
    FTA
    Is it any surprise that Merrick Garland’s hyper-partisan DOJ obtained judicial authorization for a raid on Mar-a-Lago? Without seeing the warrant, it’s not entirely clear to me on what grounds the raid proceeded, but, listening to how 30 agents descended and took everything that wasn’t nailed down, along with stories careening between “National Archives” and “national security,” I currently believe that this was a fishing expedition, and one that violated the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against “general warrants” (i.e., unlimited rights to search someone’s person or property).

    Democrats want to find something, anything to keep Trump from running again — and I don’t need to guess about that, because that’s exactly what Hillary’s lawyer, Marc Elias, is boasting about:

    Yes, I recognize the legal challenge that application of this law to a president would garner (since qualifications are set in Constitution). But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is during a campaign is in my view a “blockbuster in American politics.”
    — Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) August 9, 2022

    Elias’s caveat — the Constitution provides the only limits on a person’s ability to run — isn’t a problem for a party that plans to pack the Supreme Court or, at least, to get its unstable base to pick off Supreme Court justices. There’s also the problem that it’s the president who makes the ultimate determination about what’s classified or not. If Trump concluded, while packing up the office, that a document wasn’t classified…it wasn’t.

    But again, none of this matters to the anti-Trump coalition. As Elias says, “the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is [sic] during a campaign is in my view a ‘blockbuster in American politics.'”

    Maybe Elias is right, but I hope the Democrats are guilty of hubris and riding for a fall. Sure, the base is ecstatic, but ordinary, politically disinterested Americans, seeing the disaster of Biden’s administration and already beginning to worry about election integrity, may not be impressed watching the Biden administration use manifestly faked charges to sway another election. Or at least I hope ordinary Americans will feel that way.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/marc_elias_boasts_about_the_real_motive_behind_the_fbis_maralago_raid.html

    Liked by 1 person

  30. The FBI isn’t doing anything about the groups vandalizing Catholic Churches, firebombing Pro-Life groups or threatening Supreme Court justices

    But they find time to raid Mar A Lago
    — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 9, 2022

    Liked by 1 person

  32. whoa…butterfly at wolf’s

    bflyjesusgrl 🍊 😎ULTRA MAGA😎Online
    Coyote
    Reply to bflyjesusgrl 🍊 😎ULTRA MAGA😎
    August 9, 2022 01:24

    I will never forget Rep. DeSantis, being in charge of the Homeland Security Committee at the time, hopping the 1st plane and flying to Las Vegas. Spent a few hours and then returned back to DC. Delivering instructions? Never uttered a public word.
    In the comments of one of today’s TGP articles, a guy kept claiming DeSantis was a FED, people were calling him a troll. I think he was right.

    Like

    1. and i just read CMinTN’s comment there…sigh…
      could this be a way to split Trump & DeSantis as a strong team going into 2024?
      plant seeds of doubt in voters’ minds?

      Liked by 1 person

          1. i can’t say for sure…just what i’ve read…someone commented he went to yale. same as bushes. was he in skull & crossbones society? before gov, he was a lackluster pol…he is mirroring trump’s style and it got him praise. is he for real???
            I dunno.
            we’ve been fooled before

            Liked by 1 person

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  35. okay…my anger is not abating, but the more i read, the more diverse opinions i am finding.
    interesting points:
    the safe was empty
    there is now a precedence for raiding a former president
    POTUS wasn’t there

    sigh. CMinTN you are probably right with the 48 hr rule…

    Liked by 1 person

  36. oh yeah…after a few days respite, we caught another raccoon. hubby tethered the trap to the deck railings because one of the raccoons flipped the trap over. the raccoon last night chewed thru the tether and pushed one side of the handle out of its hole…

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  37. more interesting points of view from tcth

    Freedom ring
    August 9, 2022 8:05 am

    An inconvenient truth

    The FBI was involved in bugging the Presidents home and offices, creating false documents to take him down, facilitating a fraudulent election, supplying disinformation on Jan 6, and supporting the Jan 6th kangaroo court. They spent more money covering up the election then investigating it. They are not interested in those committing treason, only those that expose it.

    What we saw yesterday with a raid 90 days before the next election was a continuance. The storming of MAL allows for the bugging, and the fabrication of evidence. The DC office being involved means charges will be filed in DC where judge and jury will be biased.

    After all nothing says democracy like preventing people from running for office

    jim
    jim
    August 9, 2022 8:09 am

    Sure is quite a coincidence that both the FBI Director and the President of the United States were BOTH on vacation during the raid.

    Jenevive
    August 9, 2022 8:17 am

    Wouldn;t POTUS have had surveillence video ..If he does he should play
    it at his next Rally.. Just let them watch the FBI in action inside Mar-a-lago

    Liked by 1 person

  38. interesting enough, the dems quietly changed the unofficial name of their latest boondoggle to the climate bill…since anyone with half a brain knows it can’t/won’t reduce inlation one bit.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. tcth
        steph_gray
        steph_gray
        August 9, 2022 9:58 am
        Reply to WeThePeople2016

        Thanks! Just came here to see whether CTH had it. Saw it from a comment on citizen free press.

        Here’s the comment:

        “Look up Bruce E Reinhart, the judge who signed the warrant. Pretty interesting, huh.
        Bruce Reinhart once quit his job as a U.S. Attorney to work for Jeffrey Epstein, the multimillionaire accused sex trafficker who was being targeted in a probe by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
        As reported in the Miami Herald on November 28, 2018:
        Epstein also hired Bruce Reinhart, then an assistant U.S. attorney in South Florida, now a U.S. magistrate.
        He left the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Jan. 1, 2008, and went to work representing Epstein’s employees on Jan. 2, 2008, court records show.
        In 2011, Reinhart was named in the Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit, which accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides, implying that he leveraged inside information about Epstein’s investigation to curry favor with Epstein.”

        Liked by 1 person

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  44. GA/FL brought this to wolf’s

    Liked by 1 person

  47. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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  49. anyone know if this is true?
    I am too angry to research it.

    Bessie2003
    August 9, 2022 10:54 am

    Interesting comment on the Epoch Times Crosroads show this morning, that the FBI was created by Executive Order.

    So issue an Executive Order disbanding, ending, the FBI might be the easiest ways to reign in the terror.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s not quite that simple……I’m finding evidence that this was perhaps done under “Presidential Reorganization Authority.” Of course it is VERY complicated, with the parameters of that authority changing periodically as Congress changes. It boils down to Hoover I think, altho it was Teddy Roosevelt who first authorized it in 1908.

      From my first source:

      EXCERPT: “The roots of presidential reorganization authority can be traced to the Herbert Hoover
      Administration (1929-1933), and the statutory framework for this authority evolved throughout
      the middle of the 20th century. Congress reshaped the contours of the authority in response to
      experience and political context. During successive renewals of the authority, Congress
      sometimes narrowed, and other times expanded, the scope of potential reorganization activities.
      In addition, the expedited procedures were altered in such a way that it became easier or harder to
      defeat one of the President’s plans, though always easier than under the regular procedures. In
      general, the trend from the 1940s onward was to narrow the scope of potential activities and to
      make it easier for Congress to defeat a plan.

      The presidential reorganization authority was not continuous from 1932 to 1984; it lapsed for
      periods of less than two years on a number of occasions, and for longer periods from 1935 to
      1939, from 1941 through 1945, from 1973 to 1977, and from early 1981 to late 1984. As
      discussed below, the type of expedited parliamentary procedure employed under the
      reorganization authority—a “legislative veto”—was found to be unconstitutional in 1983. 12 The
      authority was modified to address this issue, and it was extended for approximately two months at
      the end of 1984. However, this version of reorganization authority was never used; the last plan
      was submitted in 1980, by President Jimmy Carter. The 1984 authority expired and therefore is
      not available to the President, but its provisions are listed at 5 U.S.C. §§ 901 et seq.13 Table 1
      provides summary information, by President, regarding the various versions of this authority.

      The following sections summarize the development of this statutory mechanism. The text
      includes brief historical context, a summary of Presidents’ requests for the authority and
      Congress’s response, highlights of the changes to the authority over time, and a summary of the
      plans that were submitted under the authority. Congressional consideration of grants of expedited
      reorganization authority to the President often included debates over the constitutionality of the
      legislative veto mechanism that was, until 1984, a key component. Inasmuch as this set of
      procedures was found to be unconstitutional and has no longer been under consideration in the
      legislative proposals of recent years, these previous constitutional concerns are not described
      here. CRS specialists conducted a thorough research of the evolution of these procedures in 1980,
      however, and the resulting studies were published in a committee print.14”

      https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42852.pdf#page=2

      From History.com: “In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt, who had taken office after a deranged anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in 1901, gave his approval for his attorney general, Charles J. Bonaparte (a grandnephew of Napoleon) to bypass Congress and form his own investigative squad.

      In a memo dated July 26, 1908, Bonaparte stated that a “regular force of special agents” would handle all investigative matters from U.S. attorneys. This force, which included some former Secret Service agents, would become the nucleus of the new Bureau of Investigation.

      Renamed the U.S. Bureau of Investigation in 1932, the bureau wouldn’t receive its current name, Federal Bureau of Investigation, until 1935.

      MANN ACT

      The new bureau took the lead on investigating violations of the Mann Act (known as the “White Slave Traffic Act”), passed in 1910, which barred the transportation of people across state lines for the purposes of engaging in sexual activity.

      During World War I, passage of the Espionage Act of 1917 led the bureau to launch its first nationwide domestic surveillance program, including wiretapping conversations and opening the mail of suspected radicals.”

      https://www.history.com/topics/us-government/fbi

      Liked by 1 person

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