What is one’s first thought when they think about bees? Is it the annoying bugs that buzz around people’s head? Or is it the terrifying monsters that makes one carry an epi pen? Often the first thoughts are negative, but humans fail to realize how significant the honey bees are as a species. People reap benefits from them spanning from agricultural to medical, yet many still do not know how intricate their behaviors are, or how much they influence a human’s life, or even how they make honey. For being such a significant figure in many fields, why is it that humans know so little relating to these remarkable insects? A way to change this lack of knowledge is through educating oneself on the facts of honeybees, which can then stem a deeper appreciation …show more content…
Eusociality is “an extreme form of social behavior” (The Social Lives of Bees, n.d.) characterized by multiple generations of honeybees living within the nest at one time, bees helping offspring not their own, and the separation of jobs within the hive. The reason honeybees have such an efficient society is because they understand their obligations toward each other with their division of labor. The one and only queen honey bee is the top ranking bee within the hive whose duties are laying eggs to elongate the hive lifespan. The other lower ranking bees are called worker bees and drones. Worker bees are female bees who care for larvae, attend to the nest, and work towards honey production. The drones are male bees who typically “hang out and eat and eventually leave the colony to mate” (The Social Lives of Bees, n.d.). Honey bees basically live in a matriarchy with the female worker bees running the hive and the Queen bee giving birth to the larvae. Males drones, on the other hand, die after mating and do not have a stinger. (The Social Lives of Bees, n.d.). The drones are even “ejected from the nest to die during autumn” (Honey Bee Behavior, n.d.) after they have mated with the queen. Each social role has its own unique behaviors, and each are extremely important to the survival of the hive making the bee’s organized division of labor …show more content…
Instinctively, the worker bees will do anything to defend their queen and colony including sacrificing themselves. A bee is only meant to sting once due to their barbed stingers being attached to their intestines, so one sting is a death sentence for a honey bee. Once they pull away from their victim, the stinger stays within the intruder and the bee flies away to die. To make sure the attack does the job of warding off the predator, “pheromones secreted during the attack will alarm and stimulate other bees to attack” (Honey Bee Behavior, n.d.). Other worker bees near the hive foraging for nectar will stop and go towards the pheromones to sting the intruder. The natural behavior of a bee to guard the Queen and protect the larvae is why the hive is able to survive so long. Each bee understands the importance of the continuation of the hive which is why the worker bees will do anything in their power, including sacrificing themselves, to maintain hive security. (Honey Bee Behavior,