Despina Rosales


	Home Press Articles Animals Writing Classes Bellydance Pilates Yoga Contact	High Society © Despina Rosales, 2007 First published in Explore, 2007. Bees have amazing hidden talents, including communicating with each other and making delicious honey! Stinging Tail If you have ever been stung by a bee, it was a female - a worker or queen bee - because only female bees can sting. A worker’s stinger is barbed, which means that it has lots of little hooks on it. If a worker bee stings you, the hooks on the stinger get stuck in you. Once the hooks are in, the bee has to fly away, leaving her stinger behind and causing a huge rip in her belly - an injury she will soon die from. Queen bees have barbless stingers and can sting without dying. Busy Bees The term 'busy as a bee' was invented for good reason. Queen bees lay one egg per minute, day and night. This means that in a 24-hour day, a queen bee lays approximately 1,500 eggs. That’s around 500,000 eggs in a year and over one-and-a-half million eggs in a lifetime! Male bees are called drones. They only have one job: to mate with the queen. This task costs the drone his life. After mating he dies. Around 85 percent of the bees in a hive are worker bees, and all of those worker bees are female. Even though workers are the smallest bees in the hive, they have the biggest jobs to do. All the worker bees do is - you guessed it! - work! Shake, Waggle And Roll If you could shrink yourself and enter into a hive of 80, 000 bees, you'd have almost half a million eyes watching you! Bees have five eyes each; three of them are called 'simple eyes' to detect light and the other two are larger 'compound eyes' to detect movement. More importantly, the worker bees can communicate with each other - not by sound but by dancing. There are several bee dances. The waggle dance is performed by a bee to tell the other workers about the distance, quality and direction of the nectar she has found. The shake dance is done when more workers are needed to collect nectar. And the tremble dance is carried out when more workers are needed to process the nectar into honey. Teaspoon Of Honey With all that hard work and all that dancing, you’d think that the worker bees would make oodles of honey. But actually, in the course of her lifetime (which is only two months) a single worker bee only produces one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. What's more, bees don’t really even make honey. They simply take nectar from flowers, swallow it, spew it up and dry it out. They do that over and over again, until they have what we call honey…so honey is nothing but bee barf! Glossary Nectar - sweet liquid produced by flowering plants. Did You Know? The oldest bee fossil found in amber is around 100 million years old. If you get stung by a bee, scrape the stinger away with your fingernail, rather than pulling. If you pull and squeeze the stinger, more venom is released into the skin. Bees prefer clover flowers - so be carful walking barefoot through the grass! Many species of native Australian bees, such as sugarbag bees, are stingless.

High Society
© Despina Rosales, 2007
First published in Explore, 2007.

Bees have amazing hidden talents, including communicating with each other and making delicious honey!

Stinging Tail

If you have ever been stung by a bee, it was a female - a worker or queen bee - because only female bees can sting. A worker’s stinger is barbed, which means that it has lots of little hooks on it. If a worker bee stings you, the hooks on the stinger get stuck in you.

Once the hooks are in, the bee has to fly away, leaving her stinger behind and causing a huge rip in her belly - an injury she will soon die from. Queen bees have barbless stingers and can sting without dying.

Busy Bees

The term 'busy as a bee' was invented for good reason. Queen bees lay one egg per minute, day and night. This means that in a 24-hour day, a queen bee lays approximately 1,500 eggs. That’s around 500,000 eggs in a year and over one-and-a-half million eggs in a lifetime!

Male bees are called drones. They only have one job: to mate with the queen. This task costs the drone his life. After mating he dies.

Around 85 percent of the bees in a hive are worker bees, and all of those worker bees are female. Even though workers are the smallest bees in the hive, they have the biggest jobs to do. All the worker bees do is - you guessed it! - work!

Shake, Waggle And Roll

If you could shrink yourself and enter into a hive of 80, 000 bees, you'd have almost half a million eyes watching you! Bees have five eyes each; three of them are called 'simple eyes' to detect light and the other two are larger 'compound eyes' to detect movement.

More importantly, the worker bees can communicate with each other - not by sound but by dancing. There are several bee dances.

The waggle dance is performed by a bee to tell the other workers about the distance, quality and direction of the nectar she has found. The shake dance is done when more workers are needed to collect nectar. And the tremble dance is carried out when more workers are needed to process the nectar into honey.

Teaspoon Of Honey

With all that hard work and all that dancing, you’d think that the worker bees would make oodles of honey. But actually, in the course of her lifetime (which is only two months) a single worker bee only produces one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.

What's more, bees don’t really even make honey. They simply take nectar from flowers, swallow it, spew it up and dry it out. They do that over and over again, until they have what we call honey…so honey is nothing but bee barf!

Glossary

Nectar - sweet liquid produced by flowering plants.

Did You Know?

The oldest bee fossil found in amber is around 100 million years old.
If you get stung by a bee, scrape the stinger away with your fingernail, rather than pulling. If you pull and squeeze the stinger, more venom is released into the skin.
Bees prefer clover flowers - so be carful walking barefoot through the grass!
Many species of native Australian bees, such as sugarbag bees, are stingless.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

SAY NO TO BACKYARD BREEDERS! SAY NO TO PUPPY MILLS! SAY NO TO ANIMALS IN PETSHOPS!

At Say No (www.saynotoanimalsinpetshops.com) it's estimated that 130,000 dogs and 60,000 cats are killed every year in Australia because there are not enough homes for them all.

Backyard breeders (people who breed their animal companion) are a large part of this problem. All animal welfare organisations agree that desexing is part of being a responsible animal guardian, so be part of the solution and desex your dog or cat (or any other animal in your family)!

Puppy mills contribute to the enormous problem of overpopulation by irresponsibly breeding for profit without any care for the animals whatsoever. The dogs live in appallingly dirty, cramped conditions all their lives, and when they no longer serve their purpose they're killed, dumped or sold for cruel medical testing.

And how do petshops fit in? Well, puppy mills and backyard breeders are where petshops get their animals from! No responsible breeder would EVER give their animals over to a petshop. Besides supporting irresponsible breeders (backyard breeders and puppy mills), having animals in shop windows encourages impulse purchases. Adding an animal to your family should be a conscious, careful decision - NOT one to be made while shoe shopping.

For all these reasons, a shelter is a far better place to buy a pet: Google "animal shelters" to find one in your state and country, and visit Death Row Pets (www.deathrowpets.net) to see what else you can do to help.

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being." - Mahatma Gandhi

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