10 Incredible Quick Facts about Honeybees

We eat a lot of honey in my house. We literally go through about 4-5 pounds per week. I have a spoonful every morning and I have energy until the afternoon! It is an amazing agricultural product (​see our recent article on
​ 8 Little Known Facts about Honey). But nothing is more amazing than the honeybees themselves. That’s why I’ve put together this list of incredible facts about honeybees!

Honeybees do thrive in the wild without assistance, but beekeepers play a vital role in ensuring their survival through the careful management of domestic honeybee colonies. Take a look at some statistics and facts about these incredible creatures.  

10 Incredible Honeybee Facts

1. A honeybee visits 2 million flowers to make a single pound of honey.

2. One honeybee will visit between 50-100 flowers per gathering trip.

3. A colony of honeybee flies 55,000 miles to make a pound of honey.

4. On average, a honeybee makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

5. A honeybee lives 35-45 days in the summer.

6. There are six sides to a honeycomb.

7. A honeybee has five eyes and four wings.

8. There are approximately 70,000 honeybees in a colony during the summer.

9. Over the course of one season, a colony will produce 70-90 pounds of surplus honey, beyond their winter needs.

10. Sixty percent of honey now consumed in the United States is imported, primarily from China and Argentina.

Beekeeping is a Year-Round Job

Most people don’t think about what a beekeeper does beyond removing honey from the hives. There is a lot of work to beekeeping and the work is year-round. Let’s take a look at the beekeeping year…

Winter:​

Bee colonies form a tight cluster within the hive to maintain warmth and conserve energy. As outside bees become cold, they will move into the hive and inside bees will take their places on the outside. This rotation will continue all winter. Meanwhile the beekeeper is monitoring the hive health and building new equipment for the spring.

Spring:​

The beekeeper inspects and cleans debris from the bottoms of the hives, treats them for parasitic mites, and replaces damaged combs. He also looks at the feeding needs of the bees and supplements their feeding if necessary. The beekeeper will also decide if the hive needs to split up into smaller more efficient colonies.

Summer:​

Beekeepers add additional sections or “supers” to their hives for additional room for honey production. Late summer the nectar flow starts to slow down and beekeepers can begin the honey harvest.

Fall:​

Beekeepers in New York State watch for the Fall nectar flow and can harvest again. They have to be careful to leave enough honey for the bees to live on for the winter. When this harvest is complete, the hives are inspected once again for mites and diseases before closing them up for the winter.

SABA

I want to thank the Southern Adirondack Beekeepers Association for their valuable service to our honeybees, for their delicious honey, propolis, pollen, and beeswax. Beekeepers and their bees are very important to farmers across the nation and to the pollination success of their crops. I would also like to thank the SABA for the unbelievable honeybee facts above. If you would like to join the SABA you can contact them at www.adirondackbees.org​.

Watch for future articles on the different types of hives available and even how to build your own.

Thank you for spending some time with me.

Love, Peace, and Light.  

Terry has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. He has taught in the New York State School system for 18 years, where he teaches Career and Financial Management, Agricultural Business, Marketing and Distribution, Sports Management, Wildlife Conservation Management, and Resort and Recreation Management. His has also been spent as an FFA advisor for 12 years and has been farming his 100-acre family farm since 1991. He has a deep love of all types of agriculture and takes every opportunity to promote agricultural education.