25 Fascinating Honey Bee Facts to Sweeten the Mind
Honey bees are fascinating creatures. Not only do they make delicious honey, but they also are responsible for pollinating crops. Even though wine grapes are cultivated (meaning they don’t rely on bees for pollination), bees are crucial to a healthy and thriving vineyard. They pollinate cover crops, which in turn replenish nutrients in the soil and draw beneficial predators who deter vineyard pests. A vineyard buzzing with honey bees is a healthy, biodiverse vineyard. Here are 25 fascinating honey bee facts sure to inspire you to plant a bee garden.
25 Fun Facts about Honey Bees and Honey
1. Dancing is a form of bee communication.
2. Worker bees are females that have different jobs throughout their lives; they do everything that drones and the queen don’t.
3. Drone bees are male and have only one job: to mate with the queen.
4. Queen bees have only one responsibility: to lay eggs.
5. Super interesting honey bee fact: Bees have five eyes—two for color, light and direction of light; and three for measuring light.
6. Where and when bees sleep is determined by their age and their jobs.
7. Bees are cold-blooded insects; they vibrate their wings to stay warm.
8. Baby queen bees dine exclusively on royal jelly.
9. The European honey bee is native to Africa but isn’t aggressive.
10. European honey bees were introduced to the New World by Europeans.
11. Italian bees are the most docile; African bees the most aggressive.
12. Bees convert the sugar in honey into wax.
13. Pollen is the bees’ protein source.
14. Bees harvest resins and saps (known as propolis) to waterproof their hives.
15. Honey bee fact for the healthy folks out there: Bees make their own bee bread by fermenting pollen.
16. It takes the nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
17. Honey bees add an enzyme to honey that turns into hydrogen peroxide, making the honey antibacterial.
18. Honey can help heal wounds and burns through a combination of the drying effect of the simple sugars and honey’s antibacterial nature.
19. Honey contains flavonoids, antioxidants that may reduce the risk of some certain cancers and heart disease.
20. Ancient Olympic athletes ate honey to enhance their performance.
21. Honey’s exact combination of fructose and glucose helps the body regulate blood sugar levels.
22. Honey is the third most faked food in the world, according to Larry Olmsted, author of Real Food, Fake Food. Only olive oil and cheese are faked more often than honey.
23. China was banned from importing honey into Europe in 2010 by the 27 countries of the European Union. “Honey laundering”—the smuggling of adulterated Chinese honey, which is a mixture of real honey with syrup and other foreign honey labeled as pure honey, into the US—is widespread. This fraud has been called “Honeygate.”
24. China is the world’s largest producer of honey and exports large amounts to the rest of the world, according to the Netflix documentary series, Rotten.
25. You can tell the difference between real honey and fake honey by checking stickiness, thickness, taste and smell with this easy test.
One final honey bee fact: The Jordan Estate apiary features seven beehives and a carefully designed bee flower garden. Reserve the Estate Tour & Tasting or book a Vineyard Hike today to see the Jordan apiary and taste Jordan Estate Honey You can also learn more about beekeeping at Jordan by watching this video.
