This page will provide a interested bee keeper with the photo of the honey bee anatomy and explanation of the varies parts and how they work in detail.
The Anatomy of the Honey Bee
Explanation of The Anatomy of the Honey Bee
The Royal Jelly. (Hypopharynx glands)
The honey bees have their duties.
The nurse bees has a gland to convert pollen into royal jelly. The royal jelly is regurgitated directly into the larvae which leaves them swimming in the food which they will then feed from and grow into a bee. The royal jelly is diluted once the bee starts forming to honey and pollen mix. The Queen Bee is the only exception that lives on royal jelly. That is why she lives so long. Its predicted she lives at least 40 times longer than a normal bee.
Wax Glands.
Young worker bees have a series of 8 wax glands at the end of their abdomen. From these glands they produce paper thin like scales of wax, that when formed together is something like putty. Which they use to form the wax combs, or block up any open entrances.
The bees form a chain of bees when they need to pass on the wax formed that drops on the floor of the hive. They build onto the starter wax to begin their comb building, holding onto each other forming a chain to the working spot.
The wax is water proof, while they form the wax combs they can alter the temperature of the hive to
form a more pliable wax form. The wax has anti-pathogenic properties that help to reduce disease to the hive.
Building wax cells in the hexagon shape enables the bee to store more honey and they seal off the honey
cells with wax coating to make sure no water enters the honey in the cell. It takes a lot of energy for
the bee to make the wax, that is why we help them with a wax sheet so they can go ahead and build from that.
Even when we swing honey from the combs, we return the empty wax combs to the hives for them to repair and continue to store honey.
Honey Stomach
The honey stomach stores the nectar the bees collect from the flowers. It is carried back to the hive,
transferred to another worker bee and fills up the honey wax comb cells. The nectar is regurgitated until
it has evaporated enough to form honey.
Then sealed with a wax capping.
Pollen Baskets.
When the bee goes about its foraging the pollen from the flowers will collect on its body hairs.
The front legs will comb and push the pollen to the hind legs where the pollen baskets are made up of
dense hairs making it easy for transportation.
Using its proboscis to obtain nectar from the cosmos flower.
Stinging Barb.
Its nice to know that only a tiny fraction of the bee colony sting. Its also a modification of the egg laying gland,
and only female bees sting. The honey bee has a barb that gets stuck in your skin, then the bee will die.
This only happens if it stings mammals like humans, as the stinging apparatus will be pulled out entirely.
They can sting other bees and fly away.
Proboscis.
it is a tube-like straw mouth piece of a bee that allows the bee to reach deeply inside the flower to suck up the nectar.
Below is a close up of a dead bee, see the proboscis clearly. Also the double wings.
The bee has muscles in the mouth which open wide to create a suction into which the nectar flows.
Hypo pharyngeal glands.
When a worker bee becomes a forager its gland alter to produce a cocktail of enzymes that start the process
of turning nectar into honey.
Compound Eye.
Comprises of 150 and more of lenses. Which help detect the patterns on the flowers and allows them to see with polarized light, which in turn allows them to navigate using the sun even in cloudy days.
Simple Eyes.(3 Ocelii)
Like most insects bees normally have 5 eyes, which detect changes in the light intensity.
The drone has excellent eye site.
Antennae.
Naturally for feeling its way and smelling of sweet nectar flow and flowers.
Wings.
Bees have two pairs of wings, that are made of the same material as the outer part of their skeleton chitin.
A series of hooks join the wings together and this allows the wings to form as one. Amazing.
Wings clearly seen at night in the flash light.
Also note those hairs on their legs.
a video slide of honey bee foraging on flowers getting full of pollen.
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