Amazing Facts You Didn't Know About Honey Bees

How many of you like to eat honey and how many of have ever bitten by Honey Bees. According to studies, Honey Bee exists in this world since 40 million years ago. The first step in making honey begins when field bees fly from flower to flower collecting the sweet juices or nectar that a flower provides. The field bees suck out the nectar and store it in sacs within their bodies. After filling their sacs with sweet juices or nectar that a flower provides, the field bees fly back to their bee hive and throw up the stored nectar into the mouths of house bees.

More than 1,400 years ago Allah and His messenger Hazrat Muhammad Sallallahu Alaiyhi Wa Sallam (peace be upon him), told us that honey can heal a variety of medicinal problems.

And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men’s) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought. (Surah an-Nahl 68-69)

Here are some interesting facts about honey bees.

• Honey Bee is the only insect to produce food that is eaten by man.
• Honey bees have 4 wings and 5 eyes.
• The honeybee’s wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.
• It is interesting to know that the female bees, not the male bees are the ones who build the hives.
• A Honey Bee produces very less amount of honey in her lifetime i-e 1/12th of a teaspoon.
• Once they feel endangered they try to bite the enemy and they die soon after they sting.
• To gather one pound of honey, approximately 556 worker honey bees collect nectar from more than 2 million flowers while a single honey bee fly around 90,000 miles to make one pound of honey.
• A Queen Bee is the largest Bee in the hive and can lay up to 2000 eggs daily.
• The Queen Bee lives for 5 years, the longest life term among bees.
• It is very easy to digest Honey because it is already digested once by Honey Bee.
• There are about 20,000 species of honey and amazingly just four of them can make honey.
• Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their hives regardless of whether the outside temperature is very hot or very cold.
• Honey bees can fly up to 10 miles from their nest in search of food. But usually, they fly one or two miles away from their hive to search for food on flowers.
• Worker honey bees live for about 4 weeks in the spring or summer but up to 6 weeks during the winter.
• A busy colony (hive) may contain 40,000 to 60,000 bees.
• A honey bee visits 50-100 flowers during one collection trip.
• The honey bees must visit about two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
• One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year.
• It would take approximately 1 ounce of honey to fuel a bee''s flight around the world.
• Bees can remember for days the faces of people they have met, an ability so surprising since they have very little brains. The only other living thing capable of doing this is human beings.
• Honeybee colonies have unique scents that members flash like identification cards at the hive''s front door. All the individual bees in a colony smell enough alike so that the guard bees can identify them.

This miraculous creature, the honey bee works endlessly to produce one of nature’s most prized resources for humans. Allah (subhaana wa ta’ala) has truly given us a blessing with His gift of honey.