The Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 9. A honey bee has nine abdominal segments.
You may have thought our numbered anatomy was finished, but no! The honey bee abdomen is composed of nine overlapping segments that allow a worker to curl her body while crawling, foraging, or stinging. In fact, when a worker bee is full of honey or nectar, as in a swarm, she is unable to sting because she cannot curl her abdomen.
Continue readingThe Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 8. A honey bee queen larva is capped around day 8 of her lifecycle.
We leave the world of bee anatomy to talk about the lifecycle of a honey bee. A queen lays an egg in a honeycomb cell, which hatches around day 3 or 4. The rest of the lifecycle depends on the type of bee. A growing queen larva is typically capped on day 8, while workers and drones are capped on day 9 and 10, respectively. There is some variation, of course.
Continue readingThe Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 7. A honey bee has seven pairs of spiracles on their abdomen.
Matching up these daily numbers is starting to get interesting. A spiracle is an opening in an insect or spider that enables the exchange of oxygen with the body. Honey bees have ten pairs of such openings: three on the thorax and seven on the abdomen. Yay for seven! The spiracles form part of the respiratory system in honey bees, as discussed in this post Do bees have lungs?
Continue readingWelcome to the Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 6. A honey bee has six legs.
All insects, in fact, have six legs, often with one or more specializations. Most bees have a number of specializations on their legs, and this includes honey bees. An insect’s legs attach to the thorax and are normally composed of five main segments: the coxa, trochanter, femur, tibia, and tarsus. Honey bees have evolved a metatarsus in addition to the segments of the tarsus.
Continue readingThe Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 5. A honey bee has five eyes.
Yes, indeed, a honey bee has five eyes. Two compound eyes as in most insects, and three ocelli that act as photoreceptors to detect the intensity and direction of light. The ocelli (plural of ocellus, of course) help honey bees navigate during flight. They likely aid foragers when following waggle dance instructions received from other bees.
Continue readingThe Twelve Days of Honey Bees, Day 4. A honey bee has four wings.
While we often think that flying animals have a pair of wings, as in birds, most insects have four wings that work together during flight. Bees, in particular, have a forewing and a hind wing that fold up separately against their body while at rest. During flight, a row of hamulus, or small hooks, link the two wings together so they operate in concert.
Continue readingThe Twelve Days of Honey Bees: Day 3. A honey bee has a three-part body.
Like all insects and all bees, honey bees have three body parts called the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. The head is where the bee’s eyes, mandibles, tongue (proboscis), and antenna are found, while the thorax is where the legs and wings attach. The abdomen holds the bulk of the bee’s internal organs and, of course, the stinger.
Continue readingWelcome to the Twelve Days of Honey Bees: Day 2. A honey bee has two antennae.
The antennae is the primary sensory organ for a bee, providing touch, smell, hearing, and taste all in two slender stalks. Each antenna is attached to the head in a bowl-like socket, followed by three main parts called the scape, the pedicel, and the flagellum.
Continue readingWelcome to Day 1 of the Twelve Days of Honey Bees, conveniently aligned with the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Honey bees, at least if they are female, have one stinger. The stinger in Hymenoptera insects, including bees, is a modification of the ovipositor gland, and as such only appears in females. Drones, or males, have hairy butts in place of a stinger. and you can distinguish a drone from a worker by looking at their rears. It’s not a common approach, since there are other more obvious differences, but next time you look at a drone’s butt you can think of me.
Continue readingIt has been a couple years since I’ve done a Christmas post. I was inspired this year by a reader comment and my own thoughts of the season, so I’m introducing a new tune. This adds to my previous classics such as The mites before Christmas, O Little Hive in My Backyard, and my most recent Silent Hives. This will be my seventh post of a bit of Christmas poetry, based on the song O Christmas Tree. See the most recent post for the full list of songs.
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Bees with eeb 