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Unfortunately, like factory farmers, many beekeepers take inhumane steps to ensure personal safety and reach production quotas. It's not unusual for larger honey producers to cut off the queen bee's wings so that she can't leave the colony or to have her artificially inseminated on a bee-sized version of the factory farm "rape rack." When the keeper wants to move a queen to a new colony, she is carried with "bodyguard" bees, all of whom-if they survive transport-will be killed by bees in the new colony. Large commercial operations may also take all the honey instead of leaving the 60 pounds or so that bees need to get through the winter. They replace the rich honey with a cheap sugar substitute that is not as fortifying. In colder areas, if the keepers consider it too costly to keep the bees alive through the winter, they destroy the hives using cyanide gas. Also, bees are often killed or have their wings and legs torn off by haphazard handling. According to the Cook-DuPage Beekeepers Association, humans have been using honey since about 15,000 B.C., but it wasn't until the 20th century that people turned bees into factory-farmed animals. Happily, many sweeteners are made without killing bees: Rice syrup, molasses, sorghum, Sucanat, barley malt, maple syrup, organic cane sugar, and dried fruit or fruit concentrates can replace honey in recipes. Using these will keep your diet bee-free.

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Unfortunately, like factory farmers, many beekeepers take inhumane steps to ensure personal safety and reach production quotas. It's not unusual for larger honey producers to cut off the queen bee's wings so that she can't leave the colony or to have her artificially inseminated on a bee-sized version of the factory farm "rape rack."

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Check out some facts about honey bees.

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Calling all budding - or should we say buzz-ing - young naturalists! Join National Geographic Kids as we get the lowdown on one of our planet's most fascinating insects in our ten facts about Honey bees!

Facts about honey bees

1. Honey bees are super-important pollinators for flowers, fruits and vegetables. This means that they help other plants grow! Bees transfer pollen between the male and female parts, allowing plants to grow seeds and fruit.

2. Honey bees live in hives (or colonies). The members of the hive are divided into three types:

Queen: One queen runs the whole hive. Her job is to lay the eggs that will spawn the hive's next generation of bees. The queen also produces chemicals that guide the behaviour of the other bees.

Workers: these are all female and their roles are to forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers), build and protect the hive, clean and circulate air by beating their wings. Workers are the only bees most people ever see flying around outside the hive.

Drones: These are the male bees, and their purpose is to mate with the new queen. Several hundred live in each hive during the spring and summer. But come winter, when the hive goes into survival mode, the drones are kicked out!
3. What are these buzzing bugs most famous for? Delicious 4. If the queen bee dies, workers will create a new queen by selecting a young larva (the newly hatched baby insects) and feeding it a special food called " royal jelly". This enables the larva to develop into a fertile queen. honey! But did you know they produce honey as food stores for the hive during winter? Luckily for us, these efficient little workers produce 2-3 time more honey than they need, so we get to enjoy the tasty treat, too!

5. Honey bees are fab flyers. They fly at a speed of around 25km per hour and beat their wings 200 times per second!

6. Each bee has 170 odorant receptors, which means they have one serious sense of smell! They use this to communicate within the hive and to recognise different types of flowers when looking for food.

7. The average worker bee lives for just five to six weeks. During this time, she'll produce around a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.

8. The queen can live up to five years. She is busiest in the summer months, when she can lay up to 2,500 eggs a day!

9. Honey bees are also brilliant boogiers! To share information about the best food sources, they perform their ' waggle dance '. When the worker returns to the hive, it moves in a figure-of-eight and waggles its body to indicate the direction of the food source. Cool, huh?

10. Sadly, over the past 15 years, colonies of bees have been disappearing, and the reason remains unknown. Referred to as 'colony collapse disorder', billions of Honey bees across the world are leaving their hives, never to return. In some regions, up to 90% of bees have disappeared!

We can all do our bit to support these brilliant bugs, gang! Why not plant flowers rich in nectar, such as lavender and bluebells, which will help bees find the food they need? Also, be sure to choose local British honey, too, which will support our Honey bees and their beekeepers!

Did you know that we have a FREE downloadable Buzz about Bees primary resource, all about these awesome insects? Great for teachers, homeschoolers and parents alike!

What did you think of our facts about Honey bees? Let us know by leaving us a comment, below!

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10 facts about Honey bees! | National Geographic Kids

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Calling all budding - or should we say buzz-ing - young naturalists! Join National Geographic Kids as we get the lowdown on one of our planet's most fascinating insects in our ten facts about Honey bees! 1. Honey bees are super-important pollinators for flowers, fruits and vegetables.

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Great bee videos from The Kid Should See This!

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We've watched lots of videos, we see s in our garden, we read about bee s in childhood stories. With all of that, it can be easy to think... Green roofs or living roofs are different types of gardens that are created on the tops of buildings to help manage stormwater, improve air quality, help cool city...

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Did you know bees can only see certain colors?

They see yellow, blue, purple and ultraviolet.

Bees do not see red!