|
|
 Elementary
 402 hits
 Tell friends
|
|
 Download Teacher's Notes
 Download Student's Worksheet
There are over 20,000 species of bees. However, only four of these 20,000 species produce enough honey to count as honeybees.
Honeybees live in large colonies with a clear social order. Each colony has one breeding adult female, called a "queen". The queen bee's role is to ensure the future of the hive. A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day. New queen bees emerge from a handful of these eggs. These queens will one day fly off to set up their own hives.
The queen's eggs also produce a small number of males, or "drones". These males mate with the new queen. They follow the queen in a swarm when she moves to a new hive. Most of the queen’s eggs produce thousands upon thousands of female sterile "worker bees". The worker bees toil without rest to keep all the bees in the hive healthy, safe and fed. They travel over a kilometre from the hive to collect the pollen and nectar from flowers and plants to make the honey which feeds the hive. That is how we got the expression "busy as a bee".
The worker bees store their honey deep inside the hive. This is where the queen lays her eggs because the temperature is perfect for raising young bees all year round. Here, the worker bees also produce "royal jelly", the highly-nourishing food which gives young bees a great start in life. However, only the chosen queens-to-be are fed with royal jelly throughout their lives. Royal jelly is also great food for helping people stay in good health. |
GLOSSARY - Colony - a group of animals of the same type that live in the same area.
- Hive - a place/nest where bees live.
- Swarm - a large group of insects flying or moving together.
- Pollen - a powder produced by flowers.
- Nectar - a sweet liquid in flowers that birds and insects drink.
|
To view the complete article, please subscribe to Just English Explorer magazine.
|
| |
|
Let's Read! 
Just English Sdn Bhd. All Rights Reserved.