Honey Bee Characteristics
Honey bees share many basic traits with other bees, but several characteristics set them apart. Their highly organized social colonies, complex communication, honey-making ability and specialized adaptations allow thousands of bees to live and work together as one remarkably efficient unit. That is one reason beekeepers, like me, find them so fascinating. I think you will too!
Honey bees are one of the most recognizable insects in the world. In fact, there are several different types of honey bees (races or breeds. While they differ in some behavioral ways – they share traits too.
What Makes Honey Bees Different From Other Bees?
Like all members of the bee family, honey bees have 3 major body parts (head, thorax, abdomen). The honey bee has 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings. We learn these basic bee facts in elementary school
But honey bees have several characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of the buzzing crowd. Their social behavior, communication skills, honey production and specialized adaptations all play a role in the success of the colony.
Honey Bees Live In Highly Organized Colonies
Honey bees live in large, highly organized colonies, with a complex social structure.
Unlike many bee species that live solitary lives, honey bees depend on a permanent colony where thousands of individuals live and work together.
Within the coloony, there are 3 kinds of bees in the hive: queen, workers and drones. Each member has a designated role to play.
Queen
One of the most important facts about the queen bee is that she is the only fertile egg-layer in the hive.
Capable of laying thousands of honey bee eggs in a day, she is responsible for producing the workforce for the colony.
The queen also produces special pheromones. These chemical messages assure the colony that a queen is present and doing her job.
Workers
The worker bees in the hive are sterile females. It is not uncommon for a hive to boast upwards of 60,000 during Summer.
They collect resources for the hive, build wax comb, feed young (nurse bees) and tend to the queen.
A special characteristic of honey bees is the workers ability to switch from one task to another. They do not perform only one task during their lifetime. Tasks naturally change as the bee ages or the needs of the colony changes.
Drones
Drones are the male bees in a colony. Unlike workers, they do not gather food, make honey or perform most of the daily tasks inside the hive.
Their primary role is bee reproduction. Mature drones leave the hive in hopes of mating with virgin queens from other colonies. While they may seem to contribute less to daily colony life, their role is important.
Drone bees do not have a stinger. They are not involved in colony defense and do not need one.
Honey Bees Have a Complex Communication System
Living in a large social colony requires good communication. Honey bees use movement, chemical signals and even food sharing to exchange information about food sources, colony conditions and other important matters.
Waggle Dance
One of the most fascinating methods of honey bee communication is the waggle dance. A successful forager performs a series of movements on the comb to share information about a food source.
The direction and duration of the dance help other foragers determine where the food is located and how far they must travel to find it.
In fact, there are several different bees dances (round dance etc.) used to communicate- but the most well-known is the waggle dance.
Pheromones: Chemical Messaging
Honey bees also communicate through pheromones—chemical signals that affect the behavior of other colony members. The queen, workers and drones all produce bee pheromones that serve different purposes.
Queen pheromones help maintain colony organization and signal her presence to the workers. Other pheromones may communicate danger, help bees recognize colony members or influence behavior inside the hive.
Food Sharing
If you have ever seen two honey bees that seem to be kissing on the lips – this is trophallaxis. Through food sharing, bees also share chemical cues and hormones that influence the behavior of the recipients.
Navigation and Memory
Honey bees have impressive navigation skills that allow foragers to travel away from the hive and find their way home again.
They use several cues, including the position of the sun, landmarks and patterns of polarized light in the sky.
These abilities also help foragers locate food sources described by other bees through the waggle dance. Honey bees can learn and remember productive locations, returning to them as long as the resource remains worthwhile.
Yes, even on a cloudy day – bees can travel several miles from the hive and make it back.
Honey Bees Make and Store Honey
One of the best-known characteristics of honey bees is their ability to make and store honey. Workers collect plant nectar and transform it into honey that can be stored in the comb for later use.
These stored reserves provide a long-term food supply, helping the colony survive periods when fresh nectar is unavailable.
While some other bees produce small amounts of honey-like food, honey bees store it in much larger quantities.
Large Colonies Make an Impact on Pollination
Honey bees are important pollinators, though they are certainly not the only bees that perform this valuable service.
As workers move between flowers collecting nectar and pollen, they transfer pollen between blossoms.
One characteristic that makes honey bees especially useful for agricultural pollination is colony size. Thousands of foragers can be active at the same time, visiting an enormous number of flowers.
Workers Build Their Nest With Beeswax
Most insects collect plant materials or other substances for nest building. Worker honey bees do something different—bees produce beeswax from special glands on their bodies.
Workers shape the wax into hexagonal cells that form the honeycomb. This comb provides space for raising young and storing pollen and honey.
Honey Bee Colonies Work Together to Survive
Colony Defense
Living in a large colony with valuable stores of honey and pollen makes defense important. Worker honey bees serve as guards at the hive entrance and respond when they detect a potential threat.
Alarm pheromones help recruit other workers to defend the colony when needed.
Worker honey bees are equipped with barbed stingers, though stinging is a last line of defense because a worker usually dies after stinging a person or other mammal.
Temperature Regulation
Honey bees work together to regulate the temperature inside the hive, especially in the brood area where developing young require a fairly stable environment.
During hot weather, workers cool the hive by fanning their wings and using water for evaporative cooling. When temperatures drop, bees cluster together and generate heat by contracting their flight muscles.
Colony Reproduction Through Swarming
Honey bee colonies have a unique method of reproduction called swarming. Rather than simply producing new individual bees, a strong colony can divide to create an entirely new colony.
During a honey bee swarm, the old queen leaves the hive with a large group of workers to establish a new home. The bees left behind raise a new queen to continue the original colony.
Specialized Bodies Help Honey Bees Do Their Jobs
Honey bees have several physical adaptations that help them perform specialized jobs.
Workers have pollen baskets (corbiculae) on their hind legs for carrying pollen, while their hairy bodies help collect pollen as they move between flowers. Pollen is stored in the hive, as bee bread, until needed.
The queen has a special organ called the spermatheca that stores sperm collected during mating, allowing her to fertilize eggs for years.
Workers have a separate structure called the honey stomach or crop for carrying nectar and water back to the colony. (See my explaination of why – Honey is not Bee Vomit).
FAQs
No. Honey bees are not the only social bees. Bumble bees also live in colonies, but their colonies are generally much smaller and usually last for only one season.
Honey bees share the same basic physical and social characteristics, but different species and races can vary in temperament, productivity, color, disease resistance and their ability to thrive in different climates.
Honey bees and bumble bees are both social pollinators, but their lifestyles are quite different. Honey bees live in large, long-lasting colonies and store significant amounts of honey for future use. Bumble bee colonies are smaller, usually seasonal and do not maintain large honey stores.
Final Thoughts
Honey bees share many traits with other bees, but their highly organized colonies, complex communication and specialized adaptations set them apart. Together, these characteristics allow thousands of individual bees to work as one remarkably successful colony. I admire the important role that all insects play – but honey bees are my favorite. I wonder why?