10 facts about honey bees

1. While science recognizes about 20,000 different species of bees, there are only seven generally recognized honey bee species.
2. Female honey bees do all the work, thus are called workers. Then there's the queen bee. The male bees are drones, mainly used for reproductive purposes.
3. Honey bees are the only surviving insects from the genus Apis. There have been other insects in the genus Apis, but none survive to this day.
4. Science generally accepts that the ancestors of the honey bees first formed in Asia. The oldest known bee ancestor in the fossil record is a bee discovered preserved in amber in Burma; it is believed to be approximately 100 million years old.
5. Male honey bees, called drones, do not have stingers.
6. Africanized honey bees are not natural. They were created by accident in Brazil. They are often called killer bees because they tend to be more aggressive than other honey bees, but they do not survive cold weather well and seem to be more prone to disease.
7. Honey bees thrive best at about 80 degress Fahrenheit. Below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and honey bees will stop flying and return to their hive.
8. During winter and other cold weather spells, bees cluster together in the hive and shiver and flap their wings quickly in order to raise the inner hive temperature and to keep the queen warm.
9. Beeswax is secreted by worker bees, females, and used to build a bee comb.
10. Honey bees communicate mostly through what is often called a bee dance, basically moving around. Honey bees also communicate, but generally to a lesser extent, through pheromones and other bodily scents.