Amazing Facts...About Honeybees

Did you know that bees have 4 wings?
The honeybee's wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.
A bee flies at a rate of about 12 miles per hour.
How many eyes does a honeybee have? Five.
The queen bee is the busiest in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum strength. She will lay about 1,000 to 1,500 eggs per day.
In the cold winter months, bees will leave the hive only to take a short cleansing flight. They are fastidious about the cleanliness of their hive.
Honeybees do not die out over the winter. They feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months and patiently wait for spring. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.
It takes 35 pounds of honey to provide enough energy for a small colony of bees to survive the winter.
Honeybee colonies have unique odors 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.

Amazing Facts...About The Work of the Honeybee

The honeybee is not born knowing how to make honey; the younger bees are taught by the more experienced ones.
A honeybee visits between 50 and 100 flowers during one collection flight from the hive.
In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited.
A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey.
One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year.
An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
At the peak of the honey-gathering season, a strong, healthy hive will have a population of approximately 50,000 bees.
It would take approximately 1 ounce of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.
Honey is the primary food source for the bee. The reason honeybees are so busy collecting nectar from flowers and blossoms is to make sufficient food stores for their colony over the winter months. The nectar is converted to honey by the honeybee and stored in the wax honeycomb.

Amazing Facts...About Honey and Your Health
Honey contains vitamins and antioxidants, but is fat free, cholesterol free and sodium free!
One antioxidant called "pinocembrin" is only found in honey.
Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
Honey has the ability to attract and absorb moisture, which makes it remarkably soothing for minor burns and helps to prevent scarring.
Honey speeds the healing of open wounds and also combats infection.
As recently as the First World War, honey was being mixed with cod liver oil to dress wounds on the battlefield.
Modern science now acknowledges honey as an anti-microbial agent, which means it deters the growth of certain types of bacteria, yeast and molds.
Honey and beeswax form the basics of many skin creams, lip-balms, and hand lotions.
According to Dr. Paul Gold, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, "people remember things much better after they've consumed glucose, a form of sugar found in honey."
Honey is nature's energy booster! It provides a concentrated energy source that helps prevent fatigue and can boost athletic performance.
Recent studies have proven that athletes who took some honey before and after competing recovered more quickly than those who did not.
Honey supplies 2 stages of energy. The glucose in honey is absorbed by the body quickly and gives an immediate energy boost. The fructose is absorbed more slowly providing sustained energy.