Bee Facts
Some Pleasant And Unpleasant Bee Facts Worth Knowing
Bees play an important role in the environment and there are some bee facts worth knowing. Here are a few tidbits about the common honey bee, the mason bee, the bumble bee, the carpenter bee, and killer bees.
Two very well known honey bee facts are, that they produce honey, and of far greater importance, they are one of nature's premier pollinators. In fact it's with mounting concern, that the honey bee population has declined significantly over the past few years, and no one seems to yet know why. A honey bee hive may contain a colony of thousands of bees, including a single queen bee. Male bees in the colony do no work and exist only for mating. The vast majority of bees in the colony are worker bees. The Honey bees are not normally particularly aggressive, so rarely sting unless disturbed. A honey bee sting is usually only dangerous to a person having an allergic reaction to the venom.
The mason bee, found primarily in the western half of the United States, is an even more efficient pollinator than the honey bee, and is an extremely desirable species for that reason. Unfortunately, the mason bee is not particularly a homebody, as is the honey bee, and has a tendency to fly away rather than nesting again in the same location. Orchard owners will often create makeshift nests to entice mason bees to stay long enough to form a meaningfully large colony.
The bumble bee is up there with the butterfly as one of our favorite insects. One of the more likable bumble bee facts, is that it is not particularly aggressive, and will move from blossom to blossom with a "minding my own business" attitude. The same bee may return to the same blossom for a period of several days, or until the blossom fades. While the bumble bee can sting, reports of bumble bee stings are quite rare.
Although not as common as some other types of bee, no collection of bee facts would be quite complete without mention of the carpenter bee. The carpenter bee can at times exhibit some rather scary behavior. The male bees will compete quite aggressively with other male bees when attempting to mate with a female. They will chase after each other in what appears to be a bee's version of an aerial dogfight. In their haste, carpenter bees often crash into structures, windows, or anything else in their way. If you are in the vicinity, they can just as easily crash into you. As alarming a situation as this may seem, the males cannot sting, and you should come to no harm.
There is a particular type of bee that can cause you harm. Saving the worst for last, let's look at a few killer bee facts. The killer bee, or more precisely, the Africanized Honey bee, is difficult to differentiate from the common honeybee in appearance, but is much more aggressive. It's sting is no worse than that of the honey bee, but the real danger lies rather in receiving multiple stings, as the killer bee habitually attacks in swarms. Killer bees will not only attack if disturbed, but can also attack for no apparent reason. Inadvertently released in Brazil, the killer bee has slowly spread northward, and is now found in parts of the American southwest.
With the exception of a few bad actors, such as the killer bee, the miner bee, and some wasps, like the yellow jacket, most bees, while able to sting, normally will not, and prefer to go about their own business. Armed with these bee facts you should feel free to go about the garden, even if there are honey bees and bumble bees about.