Honey Bees Research Paper

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The honey bee is a very social and cooperative insect. Honey bees live in colonies with one queen running the entire operation. Honey bee hives consist of three members: the single queen, hundreds of male drones, which mate with the queen, and 20,000 to 80,000 female worker bees. Each hive also consists of developing eggs, larvae, and pupae. The number of individual bees inside the colony can depend on the location and current season. A colony can have up to 80,000 bees during the active season, which is usually during the spring with the warm weather can flowering of plants.(Orkin, 2017) Queens are the only member of the hive to lay fertilized eggs. If the queen dies, workers will create a new queen by feeding a larvae a special treat known …show more content…

All of the worker bees are female, but they do not have the ability to produce fertilized eggs. When there is no queen present, a worker bee will sometimes lay unfertilized eggs, which will then become male drones. Workers are the essential factor in the honey bee colonies. Their duties include foraging for pollen and nectar, tending to queens and drones, feeding the larvae, ventilating the hive, defending the nest, and performing other tasks to preserve the survival of the colony. Worker bees use their barbed stingers to defend the colony, but after attacking their victim, the barb becomes attached and gets torn from their abdomen.The average lifespan of worker bees is approximately six …show more content…

But in the U.S, beekeepers have been noticing that life span has dropped by more than half over the past decade, which has baffled researchers for years. It has been one of the many questions that surrounds the mystery of honey bee deaths. Aside from making a delicious natural sweetener, honey bees, although not native to the United States, also provide a crucial service to agriculture: pollination. Colony collapse in general could be devastating to food production. From apples to almonds, many crops would suffer without honey bees. Colony Collapse Disorder (C.C.D) is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen. Why is this happening? There have been many theories to why C.C.D is happening. Some factors include increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite, pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops, stress due to bad management practices, and inadequate nutrition. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the agency leading the investigation looking into the mysterious deaths of the honey bee. But not just government officials are helping the cause. Celebrities such as Morgan Freeman are turning their unused land to ranches that are specifically just for bees. What are some things that can help

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