apiarium

The honeybee is directly responsible for over 80% of all vital pollination. This accounts for more than 2/3 of the food we eat. A bee must fly the equivalent (relative to humans) of three times around the globe to gather a single teaspoon of honey. A healthy colony of bees can produce from 300-500 pounds of honey per year. Honey-comb is mathematically the second strongest structure in the world beside pyramids. Scout bees report the nectar source to the rest of the hive by doing a dance which describes the source location in relation to the sun. Bees are not fast fliers; while their wings beat over 11,000 cycles per minute, their flight speed averages only 15 miles per hour. In comparison, a true fly in the genus Forcipomyia beats its wings over 62,000 cycles per minute. The Australian dragonfly Austrophlebia costalis has been clocked flying at a speed of 36 mph. Due to pestilence and pesticide misuse there are fewer than an estimated 1% of "wild" bees in this country. The rest are tended by beekeepers. Why do most honeys in supermarkets and restaurants taste the same?: Cheap honey is imported from China and Argentina and any domestic honey bought by the large packers is blended, micro-filtered & heated to extremes [to prevent crystallization on the shelf] creating a homogenous dull taste. An estimated 5% of beekeepers quit beekeeping annually due to the mite epidemic and import competition. Every year migratory beekeepers are contracted all over the country to pollinate roughly 85% of all food crops. Bees possess five eyes. The three ocelli are simple eyes that discern light intensity, while each of the two large compound eyes contains about 6,900 facets and is well suited for detecting movement. In fact, honeybees can perceive movements that are separated by 1/300th of a second. Humans can only sense movements separated by 1/50th of a second. Were a bee to enter a cinema, it would be able to differentiate each individual movie frame being projected.