Honeybees: A Gift From the Father

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Honeybees: A Gift that Keeps on Giving

The life of the honeybee is a unique one. Their intricate bodies were designed by God to perform a great task. The honeybee’s physical appearance may look small when in comparison to other creatures on planet earth, but their abilities have a huge impact.

The Life of the Honeybee

The stages of the honeybee’s life process are as follows: eggs, larva, pupa, and adult bee. There are three types of honeybees, the queen bee, the drone bee and the worker bee, all equally important. In a harmonious hive all three work in unison to create a healthy, happy and honey making home. We will showcase each bee’s unique skill after we review some basics about these little marvels.

Honeybee Vocabulary

• Honeybee: insect that produces honey.
• Beeswax: Wax made from bee’s abdomen.
• Honey: edible, sweet thick syrup produced by bees.
• Honeycomb: A wax structure made and used by bees to store their homemade honey.
• Beegum: A beehive built in a hollow log.
• Brood: Offspring, young.
• Parthenogenesis: Sexual reproduction without ferritization, as seen with drone bees.
• Royal Jelly: Secretion from worker bee’s hypopharyngeal glands. A milky white food source, high in protein.
• Ultraviolet Light: Invisible light rays; shorter wavelengths than that of visible light seen by the human eye.
• Exoskeleton: an external skeleton, as seen with honeybees.
• Propolis: a sticky substance that bees make from plant resin to fix cracks and gaps within the hive.
• Bee glue: sap from plant buds
• Proboscis: Straw like tongue used to collect nectar, drink water, and consume honey.
• Field bees: term for forager bees.
• Metamorphosis: A profound change in form, structure or substance from one stage to the next.

Honeybee Habitation

The honeybee’s ecosystem is the hive. This is the honeybee’s home. Hives are found in nature in an array of ways, such as hollow logs, clay pots, tree stumps, wooden hives and even caves. These places provide hives of honeybees plenty of space to live together in harmony. Honeybees need a dark atmosphere for their home to thrive and produce lots of honey.

What do Honeybees eat?

Honeybees eat a number of things but the most intriguing food they eat is beebread. Worker bees make bee bread, it’s a combination of honey, bee glandular secretions and pollen. Furthermore, this mix undergoes a form of lactic acid fermentation. This process makes the food easier to digest and nutrient dense. Basically, this is the honeybee’s recipe for sourdough bread. In conclusion, bee bread is highly nutritious.

Royal jelly is a milky, yellow syrup secreted from glands on the worker bee’s head. It’s of high nutritional value. Worker bees feed it to the young until the queen is born. Once queen bee emerges, she is the only one to feast on royal jelly.

Developing drone and worker larvae have their diets switched to bee milk. Once they age, they progress to eating pollen, beebread and honey.

Honeybee Body Structure and Build

Like all insects, honeybees have a three-part body and six legs. The body frame consists of a head, thorax and abdomen. They have an exoskeleton, meaning they have no internal bones inside them.

There are many physical similarities in worker bees, queen bees, and drone bees but when taking a deeper look at their appearance, it’s clear to see how the minor differences in structure can foster such profoundly different abilities.

Honeybees Have Ultra Violet Eye Sight

Honeybees have five eyes. Two out of the five are called compound eyes. They are located on the sides of the bee’s head. Each compound eye contains over three thousand lenses. These two eyes are very special because they equip the worker honeybee with ultraviolet vision. Ultraviolet vision allows the honeybee to see the juicy nectar that’s stored in flowers. The other three eyes serve as light sensors, they are located on top of the bee’s head. These light sensors permit the honeybee to see the sun on overcast days.

Honeybee Stingers

Stingers serve as a defense mechanism for the honeybee. It’s important to realize that only female bees have stingers. Worker bees have specific stingers that look like barbed wire. Due to this structure, the result of the honeybee deploying her stinger is death.

In contrast, the queen bee’s stinger is not barbed. Therefore, she is capable of stinging the enemy multiple times. It is rare that a queen bee needs to utilize her stinger, but if it happens, it will not cause her death.

Honeybee Dance

Worker honeybee’s use dance as a means of communication. Different moves and vibrations convey information about nearby flowers and nectar filled blossoms. What’s more is that the dance moves change depending on the distance, direction, quality, and quantity of the food source. This is strategic for the hive as a whole. This innate ability to share data through dance saves the bee a lot of time and hassle!

Queen Bee

The queen bee is an egg laying machine. She is famously known for her ability to lay up to a million eggs in her lifetime. She is also the lengthiest bee in the land of beehives. Weighing in at about two grams and measuring in just under an inch, these beauties don’t even weigh a single ounce.

She is feed a special meal from birth called royal jelly. This royal jelly is fertility juice for the queen and reinforces her ability to lay up to 2,500 eggs per day. This is the queen bee’s diet for life.

Due to her fertile reproductive system, her abdomen is enlarged. Her wings are smaller in size than the typical worker bee’s wings, this is because she doesn’t spend much time in flight. All her time is devoted to producing new life. Queen bees have an average life expectancy of three to five years.

Stage 1: Eggs

In the beginning of the egg laying process, the queen bee determines whether she will create a male or female. She does this by either fertilizing or not fertilizing the egg. When the queen fertilizes her egg with sperm it produces a female worker bee. When the queen plants an unfertilized egg it makes a male drone bee. Birth from unfertilized eggs is called parthenogenesis.

The queen bee plants baby bee eggs into the hexagon cell pockets within the hive. Mother queen knows the baby male drones will grow to be plump, so she intentionally plants them into the larger cell pockets. She also knows that the baby female worker will mature into a smaller, yet very fit stature. This is why she saves the smaller cell pockets for the industrious baby worker bee.

Another key point is that the queen gets assistance in this process from adult worker bees within the colony. Worker bees make brood caps on top of all the cells that have larvae. They construct these caps out of recycled wax from the edges of the hexagon cells. Workers also utilize their homemade propolis to fix cracks and gaps within the hive.

Stage 2: Larvae: The Miraculous Metamorphosis

One by one, the queen inserts each egg inside the waxed cell walls. In the hive, the six-sided inlets provide a secure home for the developing babies. Once the egg has hatched, the babies are referred to as larva. Larvae are white in color and look similar to a worm. They grow at an exceptionally rapid rate. In the first day they grow in size by more than five times. By the end of day six, larvae will have grown five hundred times their original dimensions.

Worker bees are responsible for feeding developing larvae. In the genesis of the larvae’s life, the worker bee feeds them milky, royal jelly from glands located inside their heads. This leads to exceptionally fast paced growth. At this point, worker bees distinguish between which larvae will grow to be the future queen bee and which larvae will become worker bees.

After that process, the adult worker bee switches the diet of the baby worker bee and baby drone bee larvae to bee milk and bee bread. Due to this dietary switch, physical differences will start appearing among the bees.

Meanwhile, the queen larvae continue a strict diet of royal jelly which provides her with fertile longevity.

Stage 3: Pupa

After enormous growth in record breaking time, the larvae are ready to spin themselves into a cocoon. Within the cocoon, an extensive metamorphosis happens. All of a sudden, the pupa develops and forms all the body parts needed for a productive honeybee life.

As the pupa increase in growth, the adult worker bees raise the roofs of the wax caps into a dome shape, giving drone bees the necessary space needed to mature into their bigger structures. Once the pupa is fully matured, it chews its way out of the wax structure.

Stage 4: Adult Honeybee

The result of this metamorphosis is a brand-new adult honeybee.

This miraculous transformation is a quick process. The drone bee hatches in 24 days. The worker bee is born in 21 days and the birth of the queen takes a record breaking 16 days. This is truly an amazing exhibit of God’s supreme design.

Check out the honeybee life cycle depiction below.

Adulthood: Let’s get “beesy”!

Drone Bee

Being that drone bees are all male, their job is to mate with the queen to create a healthy and abundant colony. A healthy colony consist of about one hundred drones. During the productive months of spring and summer, the figure increases, raising the quantity of drone bees to several hundred. The drone bee has very big black eyes and they are born without a stinger. They possess wider bodies with rounded characteristics. The drones are larger than the average worker bees. Although drones are usually not quite as lengthy as the queen bee, they can sometimes get pretty close in weight! During the winter months production slows down quite a bit, therefore the drones are kicked out of the hive. Drones are birthed from unfertilized eggs; this is called parthenogenesis. The typical life expectancy of a drone bee is 8 weeks.

Worker Honeybee

Worker Bees are female honeybees. They are smallest in physical size. However, they outnumber their counterparts by huge margins. The worker bees are generally sterile, therefore they devout all their time working for the colony. The worker bee’s average lifespan is 5 to 6 weeks.

Working Field Bees and House Bees

It takes a lot of worker bees to engineer a marvel like the beehive. They are responsible for many tasks. For example they clean the hive, make honey, produce wax and provide food for everyone. In addition, worker bees serve as scouters in search for resources like nectar and new nesting locations. It’s conclusive that the honeybee is always busy, working! Feeding the baby bees, feeding the drones and supplying a feast for the queen.

The worker bee has hypopharyngeal glands that are located on the bee’s head. These glands produce brood food and royal jelly. The honeybee also has wax glands on the underside of the worker bee’s belly, this is where they make beeswax.

Working house bees use the wax to construct the comb. The honeycomb is certainly a busy location. Its constantly regenerating new life. It also serves as the headquarters for honey production.

Likewise, house bees clean the comb and regulate its temperature on hot summer days. They do this by rapidly flapping their wings to disperse water droplets brought in by field bees. This method circulates air flow and keeps everything cool and preserved.

The honeybee antennae act as a nose that detects scents. In addition, this strong sense helps them find their way around in the dark hive.

Field bees and house bees collaborate to produce honey. The field bees collect nectar and deliver it to house bees so they can start the honey production process.

Gathering Nectar

Foraging field bees are capable of gathering nectar from thousands of flowers. They perch themselves on the blossoms and suck up the sweet nectar with their straw like tongue called a proboscis.

The Honeybee’s Two Stomachs

Honeybees have two stomachs. The honey sac and the midgut. The honey sac is where the field bees store all the juicy nectar until they can deliver it back to the hive. The second stomach is the midgut, this is where the honeybee’s digestion takes place.

Honey sac

Once the worker bee finds nectar, its stored in the honey sac. At this point, digestive enzymes break down the complex sugars found in nectar. This process transforms complex sugars into simple sugars. Its the beginning of nectars conversion into honey.

Honeybee’s Built in Pollen Basket

The honeybee’s fuzzy hairs attract pollen to stick to them. As a result, their bodies get covered in pollen during the foraging trips.

There is a built-in pollen basket on the worker bee’s hind legs. Therefore, when pollen is collected it is stored inside the basket. They use their hind legs to scrape and direct the pollen off their fuzzy bodies into the basket. Finally, the pollen can be transported home and utilized.

Steps of Honey Production

Honey is Made From Nectar

• Worker bee inserts proboscis into flower blossom to suck out nectar.
• Honeybee stores gathered nectar in internal honey sac.
• Enzymes within honey sac break down nectar’s complex sugars into simple sugars.
• Worker bee carries product back to house bees.
• Worker bee transfers simplified sugar to house bee via mouth.
• House bees repeat passing regurgitated sugar to each other by mouth, each time adding more digestive enzymes and further breaking down the sugars and creating honey.
• Process thickens honey.
• Circulated air within hive thickens honey to proper consistency.
• Worker bee places honey into open wax cell.
• Worker bee uses its wings as a fan. In effect, this creates an air current that causes extra water particles within honey to evaporate. As a result, honey becomes thicker.
• When honey is the proper thickness, workers cap the cell with a thin layer of beeswax.

Honey is Amazing to Think About

During their lifetime, honeybees produce 1/12th of teaspoon of honey.
In the final analysis, every time a spoon of honey goes into tea, baked goods or even eaten straight out of the jar, it serves us to remember the intricacy and hard work that went into making this delicious golden syrup! The life of the honeybee is amazing, each bee serves the colony in their own way and are equally important.

Trustworthy Honey Source:

We recommend buying your honey from a local source near you. It’s much healthier than what you will find on the grocery store shelves. In addition, it supports your local beekeepers!

If you do not have access to a local source, you can find a high-quality honey here to purchase. It makes a very nice gift and will self-preserve for a long time.

Honeybees are Strong Pollinators:

Bees are strong pollinators. They pollinate our food sources like fruits, veggies, nuts and flowers. They also transfer pollen from male to female parts on plants. This allows the plant to reach maturity and grow abundantly.

Honey Resources:

100% Pure Honey
Nates Habanero Hot Honey
Nates Pure Raw Unfiltered Honey
100% Pure Raw Unfiltered Honeycomb
Ultimate Royal Jelly and Honey Infused Luxurious Body Butter
Book of Honey Gift Set

The Holy Bible

According to Bible, John the Baptist ate wild honey and locusts while in the wilderness baptizing and preparing the way for Jesus. In Matthew 3: 1-4 it says: “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.”

John led by example. He fiercely dedicated his life to our Heavenly Father, no matter the consequences. In Luke 7:28, scripture states: “I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

In conclusion, may mankind strive to have the faith and convictions of John the Baptist.

You can read more about John the Baptist in the New Testament. If you don’t have a Bible, you can purchase one here. If you cannot afford one, you can borrow one from your local church or library.

Looking for a Bible? Check this out!

Holy Bible KJV
Wonder Bible KJV

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