ClassX Video Lessons Youtube Channel EZA Homeschool Academy Honeybee Life Cycle: All about Honeybees
Have you ever heard the buzzing sound of a honeybee? They make this sound because their wings move super fast when they fly. Honeybees are special insects that don’t have a backbone, and they love eating plants, which makes them herbivores.
Honeybees can be found all over the world, except in places that are too cold. They have a head with two antennae, a middle part called the thorax, an abdomen, six legs, and wings.
Honeybees are very important because they help plants grow by moving pollen from one flower to another. This process is called pollination, and it helps plants make seeds and fruits.
Honeybees live together in big groups called colonies. In a colony, there are three types of bees: the queen, the workers, and the drones. The queen is the boss and lays eggs to keep the hive going. Worker bees, which are all girls, do many jobs like finding food and taking care of the hive. Drones are the boy bees, and their job is to help the queen make more bees.
If the queen bee dies, a young bee larva is chosen and fed a special food called royal jelly to become the new queen. The queen bee can live for up to five years, while worker bees live for about six weeks. Drones stay in the hive during warm months but leave when it gets cold.
Did you know that a queen bee can lay up to 2,500 eggs in one day when there’s plenty of food? That’s a lot of baby bees!
Honeybees go through four stages in their life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. First, the queen lays an egg in each honeycomb cell. After about four days, the egg hatches into a larva. Worker bees feed the larva with honey and royal jelly. Some larvae become worker bees, and others become drones.
After nine days, the larva stops eating and makes a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, it turns into a pupa. After 10 to 25 days, the adult bee is ready and chews its way out of the honeycomb. Then, it starts working in the hive.
Honeybees make honey to eat during winter. Worker bees collect nectar from flowers and mix it with a special enzyme in their mouths. They pass it to other bees, who store it in the honeycomb. The bees fan their wings to dry the nectar, turning it into honey. Beekeepers take some honey but leave enough for the bees to eat.
Honeybees are super important for our environment because they help plants grow. Sadly, many wild bee colonies are disappearing because of habitat loss and other changes. We can help by planting flowers that bees like in our gardens.
Let’s do our part to save the bees! Thank you for learning with us. If you have ideas for what you want to learn next, email EZA Homeschool Academy at yahoo.com. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to our channel!
Bee Observation Journal: Spend some time outside in a garden or park and observe honeybees. Write down or draw what you see in a journal. Look for bees visiting flowers and try to notice their behavior. How do they move? What colors are the flowers they visit? Share your observations with your class or family.
Build a Bee Hotel: Create a simple bee hotel using materials like paper tubes, bamboo sticks, or small pieces of wood with holes drilled in them. Place your bee hotel in a garden or balcony and watch if any bees come to visit. This helps provide a safe place for solitary bees to rest and lay eggs.
Pollination Experiment: Use a small paintbrush to mimic a bee’s role in pollination. Visit a flower and gently brush the inside to collect pollen. Then, move to another flower and brush the pollen onto it. Observe what happens over the next few days. Discuss how this helps plants grow and why bees are important for this process.
**Welcome to EZA Homeschool Academy!**
**Life Cycle of a Honeybee**
We all know the distinctive sounds of honeybees. Have you ever wondered why they make that sound? All bees produce a buzzing sound due to the rapid movement of their wings while flying. Honeybees are invertebrates, meaning they do not have a backbone, and they belong to the insect family. They are herbivores, as they primarily consume plants.
Here is a map showing the areas in the world where honeybees can be found. As you can see, they are present across the globe, except in regions that are too cold.
Let’s take a look at the parts of a honeybee. As insects, they have a head with two antennae on top, a thorax, an abdomen, six legs, and wings.
Honeybees are vital pollinators for a variety of floral species, as well as fruits and vegetables. A pollinator is an animal that assists plants in producing seeds or fruit by transferring pollen from flower to flower, aiding in the reproduction of those floral species.
Honeybees live in groups called colonies. Within a colony, there are three types of bees: the queen, the workers, and the drones. The queen is the leader of the hive, and her primary role is to lay eggs that will hatch and sustain the hive. The worker bees, which are all female, have various responsibilities, including finding food, building and securing the hive, and maintaining its health. If you’ve ever seen a honeybee flying around, it was likely a worker, as they are the only ones that leave the hive. The drones are all male, and their role is to mate with the queen so she can continue laying eggs.
When the queen of a hive dies, a young larva is selected and fed a special food called royal jelly, which prepares it to become a fertile queen. The queen bee can live up to five years, while the workers typically live for about six weeks. Drones remain in the hive during the spring and summer months, but during colder months, they are expelled from the hive and must survive on their own.
Did you know that the queen bee can lay up to 2,500 eggs in a single day in a healthy hive when food is plentiful? During peak production season, a queen bee is quite busy!
Now, let’s explore the life cycle of a honeybee. Honeybees, like other insects, undergo complete metamorphosis as they progress through their life stages. The four stages of a honeybee’s life cycle are the egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
In stage one, the queen lays a single egg in each section of the honeycomb. These eggs hatch in approximately four days. Stage two begins when the larva hatches from the egg. Adult worker bees feed the larva a mixture of honey and royal jelly. Only some of the larva will be fertilized; the fertilized larva will develop into worker bees, while the unfertilized ones will become drones. After about nine days, the larva will stop eating and create a cocoon for itself. Once the larva spins its cocoon, the worker bees will seal it into the honeycomb. Inside, the larva will grow all the necessary body parts to become an adult bee. This is called the pupal stage of the life cycle. After some time, anywhere from 10 to 25 days, the fully formed bee will chew its way out of the honeycomb cell. The bees will immediately take their place in the hive. If a new queen has emerged, she will either start a new hive or take her place in the current hive. Worker bees will begin their duties, and drones will prepare for their roles in the hive.
Did you know that honeybees make honey as food stores for themselves? The honey we use as humans is actually food that has been taken from a hive. Beekeepers must remember to only take a small amount of honey from a hive to ensure that the honeybees have enough stored food to survive the winter months.
Let’s learn a little about how honey is made. Honey is produced by worker bees in a special way. The worker bees forage for food on warm spring and summer days, collecting nectar from flowers. The nectar they gather mixes with a special enzyme in their mouths and begins to thicken. Once back at the hive, a worker bee passes the thickened nectar to another worker bee, who adds its own mouth enzyme and stores it in a honeycomb. The bees then fan their wings over the honeycomb to dry out the moisture. Once this is done, they seal the honeycomb, almost like putting a lid on a jar.
Honeybees play a crucial role in our natural ecosystem. We depend on them to pollinate a variety of plants, which ultimately become food for us as humans. Unfortunately, wild bee colonies are declining due to habitat loss, environmental changes, and alterations in their food sources. Conservation efforts are underway to slow habitat loss, and we can help by planting flowers in our gardens that provide nectar for them. Let’s do our part to save the bees!
As always, thank you for watching! Tell us what you want to see next by emailing EZA Homeschool Academy at yahoo.com. Please like and share our videos, and subscribe to our channel!
