For the sheer love of bees, here are five wonderful facts about the little buzzing critters.
1. There are three different types of bees in a hive: a) male drones, whose sole purpose is to mate with the Queen b) female worker bees, who do absolutely everything (including cleaning the hive and collecting pollen), and c) the Queen bee, who lays around 3,000 eggs a day.
2. No bee colony could eat all the honey it produces – humans have been collecting the leftovers from as far back as 10,000 years ago. The ancient Egyptians used it to sweeten cakes and biscuits.
3. A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles (that’s three orbits of the earth) to produce 1 kg of honey.
4. Buckingham Palace has four bee hives in its gardens and Clarence House has two on the roof.
5. The number of British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) members has doubled over the last seven years, from 9,910 in 2005 to 22,222 this year.
All photos courtesy of Julian Winslow.
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