Bees belong to Hymenoptera and Apiidae. Body length is 8-20 mm, tan or dark brown, with thick hair. The head is almost as wide as the chest. The antenna is knee-shaped, the compound eye is oval and hairy, the mouthparts are chewing and sucking, and the hind feet are powder-carrying feet. Two pairs of membrane wings; The front wing is big, the rear wing is small, and the front and rear wings are connected by wing hooks. The abdomen is nearly oval, with less body hair than the chest and claws at the end of the abdomen. Bees are completely metamorphosed and go through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
In the bee society, they still live a matriarchal clan life. Among the members of their big family, there is a queen bee (queen bee), a female bee with reproductive ability, responsible for laying eggs and reproducing, and at the same time "ruling" this big family. Although the queen bee has mated, her eggs are not all fertilized. It can give birth to fertilized eggs and develop into female bees (sterile worker bees) according to the needs of large families; You can also have a fertilized egg and develop it into a drone later. When the extended family members of this group multiply too much, resulting in crowding, they should be grouped. The process of grouping is as follows: worker bees make a special hive-Wangtai, where queen bees give birth to fertilized eggs; After the larvae hatch, worker bees give them special treatment and feed them with highly nutritious royal jelly made in their bodies. After the larva develops into an adult, it becomes a new queen bee with reproductive ability. The new queen bee leads some worker bees to fly to form a new bee colony. Oriental bee. Both China bees and Italian bees are beneficial insects, and they are widely raised. In the process of reproduction, the new queen bee will be artificially grouped after birth, otherwise a queen bee will lead a group of worker bees to leave the hive and fly away, thus losing the colony. Beekeepers artificially produce royal jelly. In fact, they artificially made some queen bee platforms and put them in beehives for the queen bee to lay eggs. When the larvae hatch, the worker bees feed them royal jelly, and the beekeeper will take it out. In fact, beekeepers use deception, which shows that even smart bees are sometimes deceived.
There are many drones, and a group may be nearly a thousand. The only duty of the drone is to mate with the queen bee. When mating, the queen bee flies out of the nest, and the whole group of drones chases after it. It's called marital escape. The queen bee's marriage and mate selection are carried out through flight competitions, and only the winner can become a spouse. After mating, the drone's genitals fall off in the queen's genitals. At this time, the drone has completed its lifelong mission and died. When the males who failed to mate with the queen bee returned to the nest, they only ate and drank, and could not collect honey, becoming redundant idlers in the colony. After a long time, Feng Gong will deport them. Beekeepers don't want to keep too many drones in the bee colony and consume honey, so they are artificially eliminated. From this perspective,
Worker bees are the largest in this group. The number of worker bees kept by beekeepers in a colony varies with seasons, generally 2 1500 worker bees. Worker bees are the most industrious. The song "Little bees are busy all day, picking flowers and making honey" only refers to worker bees. In addition to collecting powder to make honey, building nests, feeding larvae, cleaning the environment and defending bees. It is also the task of worker bees. From spring to late autumn, bees are busy every day during flowering. Winter is the only short leisure time for bees. However, the cold weather and the low temperature in the hive are not good for bees, because bees are warm animals, and their body temperature changes with the temperature of the surrounding environment. The clever little bee came up with a special way to resist the cold. When the temperature in the hive is as low as 65438 03℃, they are close to each other in the hive and form spherical clusters. The lower the temperature, the closer the colony is, which reduces the surface area and increases the density of bee colony to prevent excessive cooling. According to the measurement, in the coldest time, the temperature in the bee ball can still be maintained at around 24℃. At the same time, they also use more honey and exercise to generate heat to raise the temperature in the nest. In cold weather, the surface temperature of the bee ball is lower than the center of the ball. At this time, the bees on the surface of the good ball drill into the center of the ball, while the bees in the center of the ball move outward. They took care of each other, changed places repeatedly and spent the cold winter. How do they eat honey stored in beehives during wintering and balling? Smart bees have their own tricks. They don't need to break up the spheres and climb out to eat separately, but pass them on to each other to get food. In this way, the temperature in the ball can be kept constant or changed little, which is conducive to safe wintering.
Know about bees. Other bees, Apiidae, including nearly 20% HYMENOPTERA insects. Hymenoptera refers to those insects that often deform, have membranous wings and mouthparts that can be licked and ground. Bee superfamily includes 20,000 species, all of which feed on nectar and pollen. Most of them live alone, and some of them are in the primary stage of group life. However, no species leads a strict group life like the advanced bees in the honey family. Bees are the only bees engaged in social life, including bees, bumblebees and bees.
bee
There are 4 species in this genus, all of which are social insects and live in groups. They are distributed all over the world, and their numbers are increased by dividing bees. Bees of this genus all indicate the source of honey to their companions through dance.
Indian giant bees, flower bees and Indian bees all live in Asia, and they all hang in the air to build their nests. Indian giant bees are very aggressive, and their stings are terrible. Giant Indian bees nest on the branches. Their nest is a row of beehives, 0.75- 1 m long.
The flower bee, also known as the "dwarf" bee, is only half as big as a bee, but it is colorful. Their nests are only one row, but they are small and exquisite, 8 cm wide and 12 cm long.
Indian bees are the most similar bees.
These four kinds of bees are distributed all over the world, and they have different habitat habits. Three of them live in Asia. They nest in the air. Indian giant bees like to live on high mountains. They can live at an altitude of 2000 meters. This kind of bee is mainly distributed in Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The habitat of the flower bee is not more than 500 meters above sea level, and its distribution area is the same as that of the Indian giant bee. Indian bees are distributed in a wide area of Asia, including parts of China and Siberia.
The fourth kind is bees. This kind of bee is the most widely distributed in the west. They live in several European countries (Spain, Britain, Germany and France), where they also become domestic bees. They also live in Africa. With the colonial movement, bees also came to America, Australia and New Zealand. They nest in natural caves or artificial hives, and are also very suitable for mountain life.
Pollen propagation
The only way for higher plants to reproduce is pollination, that is, the pollen from stamens is passed to pistils. Wind-borne plants pollinate by wind, but 80% of higher plants are insect-borne plants, that is to say, they pollinate by insects. Domestic bees undertake 65%-95% of insect-borne tasks, but the most active pollinators are solitary bees such as leaf cutters. It is believed that the economic benefits brought by bee pollination go far beyond honey production.
Natural enemies and parasites
Bees are delicious food for many natural enemies, but no natural enemy can destroy the whole bee colony by swallowing a few bees. The natural enemies of bees are insect-eating birds such as swallows, bee tigers and tits. If it is very cold in winter, the green woodpecker will peck through the hive with its powerful beak and peck the bees that are closed for the winter. The bee eagle in the raptor is not afraid of being stung because of its dense feathers. They destroy the hive and peck at the eggs and larvae of bees. Some insects are also bee killers. They sting bees. Mud bees are one of them. They look like bumblebees. After catching bees, they squeeze their bellies to take out all the nectar, and then leave the residue of bees to their larvae as food. Dragonflies are terrible carnivorous insects, and they also eat bees as food. Spiders cast nets to catch bees, crab spiders set traps in corollas to catch bees, and circular spiders "wait for bees".
Other animals are interested in the fruits of bees' labor, such as beehives and honey. Hornets covet honey stored in hives. A butterfly called a hive moth lays eggs in hives. Caterpillars use the hives of weak bees to weave webs. A bipedal insect nicknamed "bee louse" parasitizes bees, especially the queen bee, forcing victims to spit out food. The most terrible thing is the spore disease of bees caused by a single-celled organism, and aspergillosis caused by fungi, which will paralyze the respiratory system of bees and blind their eyes. Among mammals, bears are honey gourmets.