It's all about that buzz

​Here are some fun facts about bees and beeswax!

​

• Beeswax is strong enough to hold 40x its weight in honey. The wax comes from glands on the bees’ abdomens and is produced by “middle-aged worker bees”.
   

• Bees communicate through smell (pheromones). For example, worker bees release a pheromone when they want other bees to come look at something - it smells a lot like lemongrass!

​

• It takes the lifetime of 12 bees to make just one 1tsp of honey. It really is liquid gold.

​

• Honey bees have five eyes - two compound eyes consisting of thousands of lenses each and three ocelli, or ‘simple eyes’.

​

• Bees hang together in a chain, known as festooning, and use their bodies to measure and align the wax comb.

​

• Bees can't see the color red, but they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum (which humans cannot). Bees can also easily distinguish between dark and light – making them very good at seeing edges.

​

• Honey bee wings beat 230 times per second. Their top speed is 15-18 mph while traveling to a food source and about 12mph when returning with nectar, pollen, propolis, or water.

​

• Any young female bee egg has the potential to become an adult queen bee. A worker larva is turned into a  queen when it is fed extra nutrient rich royal jelly and given more room to grow!

​

• Approximately one-third of the food we eat is the result of honey bee pollination. Thanks for work’n so hard, bees!

​

• Beeswax helps to lock in moisture, making it a great defense against dry skin, lips or hair. It  has been used in beauty products for thousands of years.

​

• Honey can be used as a substitute for sugar in many food and drink recipes. Use the ratio of ¾ honey to 1 sugar.