20 fun facts about Australian Honey and Bees!

Suitable for school age children doing projects.

Did you Know?

1. There are three types of bees; Queen, Worker and Drone.
2. A colony of bees can contain between 20,000 and 60,000 bees, but only one queen bee.
3. Honey means ‘enchant’ in Hebrew.
4. Bees are the only insects in the world that make food for humans.
5. In America 80% of the pollination of the fruit, vegetable and seed crops is done by honeybees.
6. Beekeepers only take the honey that the bees do not need, but this can be as much as 45kg from one hive!
7. Honeybees have five eyes.
8. Bees have two separate stomachs; one for food and another just for nectar.
9. Honeybees never sleep and they communicate by dancing and using pheromones.
10.  Honey stored properly, never goes off or expires. Honey vats were actually found underground in King Tut’s tomb 2000 years later.
11.  The queen bee is the largest bee in the hive. She can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day, twice her own body weight!
12.  Drones only job is to mate with queen bees. They do no other work and don’t even have a stinger.
13.  Worker bees are all female and are the only ones that will sting you if they feel threatened.
14.  In ancient times, German peasants were required to pay their lords with honey and beeswax.
15.  Honey contains all of the substances needed to sustain life, including enzymes, water, minerals and vitamins.
16.  Honey’s ability to attract and retain moisture means that it has long been used as a beauty treatment. It was part of Cleopatra’s daily beauty ritual.
17.  Native Americas used to call the honeybee, “White Man’s Flies,” because swarms came after the Europeans arrival.
18.  It would take 1,100 bees to make 1kg of honey and they would have to visit 4 million flowers.
19.  Two tablespoons of honey would fuel a honeybee to fly once around the world.
20.  There are lots of different types of honey which taste different depending on the flowers used to make it.