2. SO, WHAT ARE BEES
EXACTLY?
Bees are flying insets closely
related to wasps and ants.
They come from the family
Apoidea and they are divided into
9 other families >>>
There are about 20,000 species
out there.
Bees have yellow/orange and
black stripes on their bodies
Bees have a haploid-diploid
breeding system.
3. pollination:
Bees feed on the nectar and
pollen from the flower
flowers reproduce by
transferring pollen from the
anthers to the stigma.
Bees carry the pollen by their legs from flower to flower
which results in genetic
diversity.
This means, the interaction between bees and flowers is a
mutualistic relationship.
BEES ARE GREAT
POLLINATORS
4. HOW BEES LOCATE
FLOWERS
1. A bee’s sense of
direction is by
their sense of
smell.
2. Bees
communicate to
each other by the
waggle dance.
5. 2 MAJOR TYPES OF
BEES
1)SOLITARY BEES 2) COMMUNAL BEES
6. Solitary bees live alone.
solitary bees are all
female.
They don’t produce bees
wax or honey.
They live in holes in the
wood, in the ground or in
hollow twigs
Examples; carpenter
bees, leafcutter bees and
mason bees.
SOLITARY BEES
7. COMMUNAL
BEES
• They share a
nest together
and live in
colonies
• The most
common types
are; bumble
bees, stingless
bees and honey
bees.
8. Honey bees make honey.
They can make colonies as large as 80,000 bees.
They are the number one pollinator insects on the planet.
Each bee has a specific role in the colony, which is divided
into 3 roles:
HONEY BEES
9. 1) THE QUEEN BEE
Female
2cm’s big
Can live up to 5 years
There can be only one
queen in a colony.
It’s role is to produce eggs
and send chemical signals
to guide the bees
10. 2) THE DRONES 3)THE WORKERS
Drones are male bees
Their role is to fertilize
the queen.
They only live during the
spring and summer
Worker bees are females
They take up 98% of the hive.
They do the most work, they
look for pollen, protect the
hive, clean, circulate air and
make the honey.
11. HOW HONEY BEES MAKE
HONEY
Worker bees make honey from the nectar of flowers.
worker bees store that nectar in their “honey stomach”.
Worker bees digest this nectar in their stomach by it’s enzymes.
Then the worker bee throws up this substance into another
bees mouth, then the other bee
does the same thing again and
The cycle continuous until the
honey is ready.
The bees store the honey in one
of their “cells”.
They harden the honey and seal
it afterwards.
12. THE IMPORTANCE OF
BEES
Why are bees important :
1/3 of our crops are pollinated by
bees, such as,( cotton, apples,
onions, cherries, tomatoes, coffee
…etc.)
Plants that are pollinated by bees
are the foundation of terrestrial
food chains.
If bees go extinct, we would go
extinct a few years later.
13. HOW TO HELP BEES
In the last several years scientists and farmers have noticed that the
population bees have decreased dramatically, about 50% actually and
this is because of different factors such as:
Pesticides like neonicotinoids cause the bees to die or forget
memory and leave the hive.
Parasites like (varroa destructor, paenibacillus, acarapis woodi) live
inside the hive and kills the bees easily.
Lack of flowers because of pollution, climate change, drought,
habitat destruction and much more things that humans do.
How do WE prevent this?
Stop using pesticides and other dangerous chemicals.
Grow more flowers.
Support your local bee keepers.
Protect the environment.
