What Do Bees Make?
Many plants use nectar as a way of encouraging insects (bees, wasps, butterflies, etc.) to stop at the flower. Honeybees "make their living," so to speak, by gathering nectar from flowers and turning it into honey. In the process of gathering nectar, a worker bee transfers pollen grains from one flower to another and pollinates the flower. This is why the plant made the nectar. Bees also gather the pollen - it is a source of protein for bees. They have little baskets on their hind legs, and they fill the baskets with pollen so they can carry it back to the hive.
By mixing honey and pollen together, bees make beebread, one of the foods that bees feed to larva as they are growing. Some bees in the hive produce a food called royal jelly using special glands in their heads. Royal jelly is a special kind of food fed to bee larvae. If you feed nothing but royal jelly to a bee during four critical days while it is growing, you get a queen bee.
Sometimes bees gather sticky substances like tree sap. They turn the sap into propolis, which is also called bee glue. Bees use this glue to fix the hive, plug holes and more.
Finally, bees at a certain age can make beeswax. They have little glands on their undersides that secrete wax as tiny flakes. The bees grab the wax flakes with their mouths and add them to the hive.
What Do Bees Pollinate?
Many fruits and vegetables would disappear from grocery store shelves if it weren't for honeybees. Almonds, for example, are a $2.5 billion industry in California, and almond growers depend on honeybees to pollinate the crop. No honeybees would mean no almonds. Many berries (like blackberries and strawberries) need bees, as do vegetables like cucumbers and squash. And don't forget tree crops like apples, oranges and peaches. Watermelon and cantaloupes depend on bees, too. In fact, approximately 15 percent of the food Americans eat comes directly from honeybee pollination. Another 15 percent comes from animals that eat foods that bees pollinate. In other words, close to a third of the food that Americans eat currently requires honeybee pollination. Honeybee pollination is so important that bee farmers actually truck their bees from orchard to orchard and farm to farm to help pollinate crops.
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Not Another Bee-movie
First, came a spider and a pig. Next, there were countless horses and dogs. Then another pig. Followed by some chickens. Oh, and bunches of ants. Right - and a clownfish with a slew of friends (like those cool sea turtles). And we can't forget the penguins. Lots and lots of marching penguins. Ah yes, and a rat that cooks. Well, now the bees are coming. Actually, make that one bee. Actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld will be appearing on a big screen near you as Berry B. Benson - a disenchanted honeybee that takes a turn for the litigious after learning that – gasp – humans eat honey.
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