About Honey and Honey Bees

Honey Bee Hive ~ The Worker Bees, Drones and Queen ~ Useful Insects ~ Honey Bee's Dance Language ~ Apis Mellifera ~ Bee Keeping ~ The Stinger ~ Honey ~ Types of Honey ~ Pollination ~ Honey Making Process ~ Nutrition Chart ~ Royal Jelly ~ Bee Wax ~ Honey Bees in Twitter Search ~ Honey bee - Classification ~ Guest Book

HONEY BEE HIVE

Honey bee is a social insect. A usual hive is separated primarily into worker bees and drones, ruled by the queen. The next to queen in the chain of domination is the drone. The labour is left to the worker bee in the hive those who fly around gathering pollen and nectar.

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Honey Bees are generally about 3/4 of an inch long. Maximum bees are workers, which are female, but some are male, called "Drones." The next to queen in the chain of command is the drone who is basically lazy - his exclusive job being to mate with the queen bee. Drones live for around 24 days, have no stingers and do nothing at all.

Worker bees are somewhat smaller than drones. The labour is left to the worker bee in the hive those who fly around gathering pollen and nectar.

Drones developed by parthenogenesis from unfertilized eggs that the queen makes by cover-up sperm from the eggs laid in large drone cells. Drones lack stings and the formations needed for pollen collection, in the autumn they are ejected by the colony to starve, unless the colony is queen less. New drones are produced in the spring for mating.

Both Queen Bees and worker bees are created from fertilized eggs. Queen larvae are bring up in special peanut-shaped cells and nurtured more of the pharyngeal-gland secretions of the nurse bees called milk or Royal Jelly than the workers larvae are. Queen Bees are fully fertile female experts for producing eggs. When a queen dies or is lost, worker bees pick out a few young worker larvae and feed them a separate food called "Royal Jelly." These special larvae mature into queens. So, the only difference between workers and queens is the quality of the larval nourishment. There is generally only one queen per colony. The queen also influences the colony by creating chemicals called "pheromones" that regulate the behavior of other bees.

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The accurate mechanism for this caste separation is still undefined. Even though workers are parallel in look and performance to other female bees, they lack the structures for mating. When no queen is there to inhibit the development of their ovaries, on the other hand, workers eventually begin to lay eggs that develop into drones.

The morality of the colony is maintained by chemical secretions, or PHEROMONES. Workers produce pheromones from the nasal gland at the tip of the abdomen when they gather, enter a new nesting site, or make a source of nectar or water. The colony odor is recognizable by bees of the same colony because of its special mixture of components originated from the colony's particular collections of nectar and pollen.

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As soon as the queen fly to mate, a mandibular - gland pheromone draws the drones. The same gland creates another pheromone, called queen substance, which workers lick from the queen's body and pass along as they interchange food with each other. The eaten pheromone put a stop to the ovaries of workers. When the queen's secretion is inadequate, the colony manufactures queen cells to succeed her. The mandibular glands of workers make an alarm odor, which serves to warn the colony when it is troubled. Workers also produce a sting odor, which is released at the site of the sting and helps to guide other bees to the sting area. Stingless bees bite leaves at pauses along their flight path to provide a scent trial of mandibular secretions.

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Honey Bees are Useful Insects :
Honey Bees are very important and useful insects. Human beings are rely on them to pollinate crops, particularly fruit trees such as oranges and mangos etc. If Honey Bees didn't move pollen from flower to flower, we would have problems in growing fruits!
People also use honey and wax from honeycomb to prepare candles and various products. Honey Bee's venom is used to create medicine to cure 'Arthritis'.

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The talent of honey bees to convey direction and distance from the hive to nectar sources through 'Dance language' has obtained wide spread attention. In 1973, Kari Von Frigch received a Nobel Prize for interpreting the language, which contains of two basic dances: a dance in circle, for representing sources without reference to specific distance or direction; and a tail wagging dance, in which the precise distance is specified by a number of straight runs with abdominal wagging- the fewer runs per minute, the farther away the nectar source. Wing vibrations formulate sounds at the same rate as the tail wagging and are known by organs in the legs of other bees.

Researchers have created a robot 'bee' that can communicate with other bees in this way. The direction or azimuth, to the food resource is indicated by the angle of the wagging dance to the sun. Bees use the sun as a compass, correcting the dance angle to the plane of polarization of the sunlight. At the same time when the sun is covered by clouds, bees can spot the position of the sun from the polarized light emanating from intense patches of sky. Honey bee also has a built-in-clock that seems to be coordinated with the store of nectar in flowers. That's why, honey bees making the rounds of flowers in search of nectar always seem to be at the right place at the right time.

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APIS MELLIFERA

Maximum species have traditionally been cultured or at least utilized for honey and beeswax by humans home-grown to their native ranges. Merely two of these species have been truly cultivated, one ( Apis mellifera) at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids, and only that species has been shifted extensively beyond its native range.

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Bees of the family Apidae - which consist of honey bees - store honey and pollen, and back side of the brood, in upright combs with a layer of cells on each face. Of the four species of honey bees in this honey bee family, three appear only in Asia. Apis dorsata, the giant Indian bee, which build a single comb as large as 1.5m (5ft) wide and 1m (3ft) long enclosed to the rocks, trees, or buildings. Apis florea, with a lone comb about 8 to 12 cm (3 to 5 inch) across, and Apis indica-the oriental hive bee, with nests of more than a few combs are sheltered in cracks of rocks or hollows of trees. Contrasting the other bees, these honeybees do not hide away during the cold weather. They last out the precisions of northern cold winters by nourishing on saved supplies and distributing their body heat, gathering together in dense packs.

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Socialization is very advanced in the family of Apidae. As new, young queens are about to develop in an established hive, half of the colony leaves with old queen and clusters on a nearby bush or tree while scout bees hunt for a new home. When the scouts appear to agree on a new place, the cloud disappears. At the old nest, mean while, the first queen to emerge predisposes of the other queen (by stinging them) before they have a chance to emerge. Within a few days, the virgin queen will take off to where drones assemble, and mate with 6 to 12 drones. The sperm from these drones is deposited in a sac (spermatheca) and use up during her egg - laying life of from 2 to 5 years or maximum of 9.

For Bee Keeping, honey bees can be kept more or less anywhere there are flowering plants that give nectar and pollen. Select a site for bee hives that is separate, protected from winds and partially shaded. Get out of low spots in the back yard where cold, damp air mount up in winter. Be sympathetic of non-beekeeping neighbours. Position hives so that bee flight paths do not cross play grounds or other public areas. In dry weather, bees may gather water at neighbours' water taps. Get out of this by giving your bees a water source in your yard near the hive such as a container with floating wood or foam chips. The floating items prevent bees from drowning.

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POLLINATION

Pollination is the impregnation of a flowering plant. Pollination happens when pollen is transmitted from the anthers of a flower to the ovules of same or another flower. Honey bees are dependable for pollinating a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts such as almonds. About one-third of the diet of human being is obtained from insect-pollinated plants, and honey bees are the source for 80% of the pollination.

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Pollination is instrumental and it assists to the creation of seeds that grow into new plants. Flowering plants have numerous different parts that have been effectual in pollination. Flowers have the male parts identified stamens that create a sticky powder called pollen. Flowers can also have a female part designated pistil. The very best of the pistil is the stigma, and is also often sticky. Seeds are created at the bottom of the pistil, inside the ovule.

To get pollinated, pollen requires to be conveyed using a stamen towards the stigma. When pollen coming from a plant's stamen is exchanged to this same plant's stigma, it's called self-pollination. When pollen coming from a plant's stamen is transferred into a different plant's stigma, it is called cross-pollination.

Pollination occurs in many ways. Human beings can exchange pollen from one particular flower to a different one, but a lot of plants are pollinated without the help from people. Naturally plants rely on animals as well as wind to pollinate them. Animals just like honey bees, butterflies, moths, flies, and hummingbirds are pollinating plants. Commonly they are along at the plant to get food, the sticky pollen or sweet nectar made for the base of the petals. When feeding, the animals accidentally rub contrary to the stamens and just get pollen stuck done themselves. Once they migration to another flower to feed on, some of the pollen can rub off onto this new plant's stigma.

Bees are certainly not in search of people to sting! Bees only sting in the protection of their hives or themselves. Honeybees are not aggressive by nature, and will not sting unless defending their hive from an intruder or are unduly motivated. Honeybees have a dazzling color pattern to alert predators that they have a weapon to protect themselves. The weapon is its egg laying tube (ovipositor). This is combined with a venom gland to create a stinger (aculeus) to be found at the end of the abdomen.

The stinger is adapted from an anatomy located only in females, male bees cannot sting. While the hive is risked, honeybees will abundance out and aggression with their stingers to drive the attacker away. They sting if your swipe at them or aggrieve them, but they never attack without annoyance. The axiom for the access could be that the stinging assassinates them. (The recurved barbs on their sting stay in the flesh and once the bee advances to go away it rips out the stinger and glued venom sacs and dies concisely afterwards.)

To avert being stung just abandon the bees alone, avert the crave to assail at them if they come on you, they are beholding for water and you are plausibly the moistest body around at the time. Do not draggle around their hives, especially close the entrance. Even if acute pain and some swelling and itching are natural reactions to a honeybee sting, a minor percentage of persons are atmospherically allergic to bee venom. "Bee venom therapy" is commonly practiced overseas and by some in the US to address health troubles such as arthritis, neuralgia, high BP, high cholesterol.

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Honey Bee Stings
A bee sting will produce intense local pain, reddening and inflammation. This is a natural reaction and does not point to a serious allergic response. In common, several beekeepers no longer redden or swell when they are stung. Very small fraction of the human population is actually allergic to bee stings. These persons experience breathing trouble, unconsciousness or even fatality if they are stung and should carry with them an emergency kit of injectable 'Epinephrine', obtainable by prescription from a Doctor.

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Honey is a bulky liquid produced by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. Whereas many species of insects consume nectar, honeybees refine and concentrate nectar to make honey. Without a doubt, they make lots of honey so they will have enough food for times when flower nectar is unavailable, such as winter. Contrasting most insects, honeybees remain active through the winter, eating and metabolizing honey in order to keep from freezing to death. Early humans maybe watched bears and other mammals loot bee hives for honey and then tried it themselves. Once man found out what honey was, next they had to learn how to get it from the bees securely! Humans use the honey for various different purposes. Honey can be a alternative for sugar in many foods. You can make ice cream with honey but you would have let down the temperature in the freezer because honey drops the freezing point.

Honey has a superior sweetening ability that sugar doesn't have. One cup of honey weigh up 12 ounces while one cup of sugar weighs 7 ounces. Honey flavors range from tasteless to mild and strong. The color varies from black to white. Color tint begins in the nectar at the plant and is transferred back to the hive by the bees. Honey is strengthening by the natural treat by the bees (reducing the moisture etc.). Dark tinted honey does not mean lesser class; but it means a different source of nectar and a separate taste of honey. You can find the ones you enjoy most by trying different honeys.

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Honey was also used in numerous ways in history. Long ago chief priest used honey and cakes sweetened by honey in many sacred ceremonies. In Roman times, Romans used honey as commonly as sugar is now. It was use up for cooking, preserving meats, vegetables, fruits, sauces and dressing. In Bible sources it is said that honey was the first and last food that Jesus Christ consumed on Earth. Muhammad is recorded in the Holy Koran saying that honey is a solution for all illnesses.

Honey is known as a wonder food; it never goes bad. Previously it was stated that archaeologists discovered 2000 year old honey jars in Egyptian pyramids and that they still tasted wonderful! So, "Use Before Dates" on honey jars will not be necessary.

Bees bring nectar to the hive where it is processed by the bees to honey form. Comb honey is taken straight from the beehive just as the bees made it. It is untreated honey exactly as the bees created it and the only form of honey that is not processed by humans in any way. This pure honey keeps pollen grains and enzymes used by the bees to produce the honey from nectar. During the honey making process, once the honey has reached the desired moisture content, the bees cap each cell in the comb with white bee-wax. The combs are collected by the Beekeepers from the beehives and pack up them for sale. It has never been filtered or heated and has no additives. All the nutrients, flavor and other great chattels that honey provides in that comb honey.

Liquid honey is free of visible crystals. Liquid honey has been filter out the impurities to remove fine particles, pollen grains, and air bubbles, and heated to melt visible resources crystals after being distill the essence of this compound from the honey comb by centrifugal force or gravity. Because liquid honey merges easily into a several type of foods, its uses are diversified. It is used as syrup for pancakes and waffles and in a wide range of recipes, and it's particularly handy for cooking and baking.

Creamed honey can be one of the finest hive products available produced by blending one part finely granulated honey with nine parts liquid honey. The two is stored at about 57 degrees until it becomes firm. Fantastic mild flavor, spreads like butter at ordinary room temperature, and unlike liquid honey, it doesn't drip. Creamed honey is basically crystallized or granulated honey. Well-made creamed honey possesses a creamy texture due to the crystallization process has been precisely controlled.

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Honey bees have to go through a lengthy process to produce honey. The nectar collected by field bees is stored in wax cells in the hive where it is converted into honey. The house bee and the field bee are occupied in this process. The process begins when field bees gather quantities of nectar from flowering plants and return to the hive. They bring it to the hive and handover it to the house bee tongue to tongue. The nectar is accumulated in the honey sac, here "Invertase" (an enzyme) is added to the nectar.

Invertase allows the nectar, mostly a sucrose solution, to be changed to a mainly levulose and dextrose solution. Throughout the next couple of days other house bees fan their wings over the nectar so that the moisture disappears. Throughout this process the moisture content is condensed to 14-21%. Once the honey is ripe, bees cap the cells with beeswax. The higher the humidity or colder the climate, more tough it is for house bees to decrease the moisture content. Honey with more than 21% moisture content is likely to ferment and destroy the product. To finish, more house bees cover every cell filled with improved nectar with a thin layer of wax.

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Generally, three to five tablespoons of honey a day is sufficient. A good regimen to follow is to consume a tablespoon or two of honey in the morning with fruit or yogurt or cereal. Another tablespoon should be consumed at bedtime. In between, another one or two tablespoons can be ingested with fruit snacks, in baked goods, or as used in cooking. Honey contains about 60 clories per tablespoon. Generally, the percentage of ones' total caloric requiremnets provided from simple sugars should not exceed 10%. Thus, the 180 to 300 calories a day provided from honey is sufficient, unless excessive energy demands allow for additional consumption.

~ Dr Ron Fessenden, MD, MPM, The Honey Revolution.

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With perfect control, diabetics and individuals with blood sugar levels higher than normal person however not high enough for a consideration diabetic still are able to securely enjoy natural honey.

Each diabetic is dissimilar and may discover how the individual's body reacts to different foods containing carbohydrates. Before include honey in their meal planning, discover how big part the honey could possibly be consumed every day. The entire level of starches or carbohydrates within a foodstuff is the important factor, not the quantity of sugar.

1 tablespoon of honey has just about 17 grams of carbohydrate, and considering when counting the total daily intake of carbohydrates, diabetics can calculate same as other sweetener or carbohydrates. When purchasing honey from a store for diabetes sufferers, ensure that it is pure and not just mixed with glucose, starch, cane or malt, that much better to be ignored within a diabetic diet. Before coming into a conclusion, contact a medical expert to get a proper advice.

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ROYAL JELLY

The Royal Jelly is a discharge from workers' glands. It is nurtured to the queen bee throughout her larval and adult life. It is also nourished to larvae for the first two and a half days. It is a creamy milky-white color, intensely acidic, has a prudent aroma and bitter taste. The queen consumes only royal jelly, fed the worker bees eat some royal jelly and the drones eat the minimum amount. Royal jelly is excessive in protein and is rich in vitamins B, C and D.
Royal jelly is use up in many things such as in nutritional supplements, seasonings in lotions, cosmetics and creams. It is in need as a human health food because it is known to improve human health.

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Royal Jelly is the stuff that changes an ordinary bee into the Queen Bee. This "milk" or "pollen mush" is made of pollen which is chewed up and mixed with a chemical secreted from a gland in the nursing bee's heads. It has a combined of vitamins, minerals, proteins and fatty acids, along with acid glycosides and sterols, such as stigmasterol and half of the dry weight of royal jelly is made of protein. Researches in rodents indicate royal jelly has anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor properties.

It is fed to all the larvae for the first two days of their lives. Scientists decided to try nourishing the queen bee's food to other animals with amazing results. The life of pigs and roosters showed as much as a 30% increases. Fruit flies nourished with royal jelly were increased in size and in rate of production. Chickens fed royal jelly laid twice as many eggs, and the older ones began to lie again!

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