Bees Don't Sleep

That's right! Honeybees DON'T sleep! Not by our understanding of sleep, anyhow...

• Honeybees are insects
• Honeybees have 6 legs, 5 eyes, and 2 sets of wings
• Honeybees can fly at about 20 mph
• Most honeybees in a colony are workers, who live for about 6 weeks
• Each colony has 1 queen, who will live for about 2-3 years
• Both workers and queens are female
• The male honeybees are called drones, and they do no work at all
• There will be between 20,000-60,000 honeybees in one colony
• Honeybees have been around for 30 million years
• Only workers will sting, and only if they feel threatened
• Worker honeybees will die once they sting
• Drones have no stinger
• Queens have a stinger, but don’t leave the hive to help defend it
• A worker bee will collect about 1/10^th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime
• It takes about 556 workers to gather 1 pound of honey
• It takes the nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey
• A Canadian Prairie honeybee colony can produce an average of 170 pounds of honey in a single season
• Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba produce most of Canada’s honey
• Honey is a natural, unrefined food that does not spoil
• Minerals found in honey include iron, copper, sodium, potassium, manganese, calcium, and phosphorous