World Bee Day Recognizes Importance of Small But Mighty Bees
Posted May 20, 2022
Every third spoonful of the world’s food depends on pollination, and on May 20, the United Nations joins together people of the world to celebrate and become more aware of what bees do for us on World Bee Day. As a food and beverage creative agency, we are proud of our work to help the honey bee in particular — from our longstanding partnership with the National Honey Board to our Bee to Bottle presentations/research and our commitment to helping spread bee health awareness.
These little insects pack some power, and the day is reserved thanks to Slovenia, who first proposed World Bee Day back in 2014. In fact, GOV.SI calls bees “some of the most important pollinators” because they ensure food and food security, help sustainable agriculture and they significantly contribute to the mitigation of climate change and conservation of the environment.
We’ve compiled 10 of our favorite not-so-known facts about honey bees thanks to the American Bee Journal.
- A worker bee on average has a lifespan of six to eight weeks, but in this short amount of time, she (yes, 99.9% of honey bees are female) accomplishes so much including producing honey and pollinating flowers.
- Bees have 5 eyes, 6 legs and fly about 15 mph
- The queen lays up to 2,500 eggs per day
- An average beehive can hold around 60,000 bees
- Nectar from about 2 million flowers makes about 1 pound of honey, and the average forager bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon in a lifetime
- An 8,000-year-old cave painting in Spain shows us that honey and honey bees have been around thousand of years
- On average, a beehive will produce about 65 pounds of surplus honey each year.
- More than 100 crops are pollinated by honey bees
- Honey bees produce beeswax from 8 paired glands housed underneath their abdomens
- The honey bee’s wings stroke on average 11,400 times per minute
Boštjan Noč, initiator of World Bee Day and president of the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association, said during the proclamation of World Bee Day: “To talk about reducing world hunger without ensuring conditions for the existence of bees and other pollinators is to pull the wool over people’s eyes. It is time for everyone to listen to bees, in particular leaders and decision makers. From now on, 20 May will be a worldwide celebration of bees and beekeepers. I believe that with the proclamation of World Bee Day, the world will begin to think more broadly about bees, in particular in the context of ensuring the conditions for their survival, and thus for the survival of the human race.”
Tags: American Bee Journal, bee, National Honey Board, World Bee Day
CATEGORY: Brightly Creative
