Tips For Finding Bees

A bee is a flying insect that is closely related to wasps and ants. Bees come from the Apoidea family. Not all bees live in colonies; the mason bee, carpenter bee, leafcutter bee, and sweat bee are solitary bees which mean they live by themselves. Honey bees are often mistaken for wasps. Bees are found on all continents except for Antarctica because there are no flowers.

A bee is a flying insect that is closely related to wasps and ants. Bees come from the Apoidea family. Not all bees live in colonies; the mason bee, carpenter bee, leafcutter bee, and sweat bee are solitary bees which mean they live by themselves. Honey bees are often mistaken for wasps. Bees are found on all continents except for Antarctica because there are no flowers.

A bees life cycle is similar to that of an ant or a butterfly; they undergo four stages to complete one life cycle starting when the queen mates with a drone; the drone will die soon after mating.

The egg – after mating with the drone, the queen lays an egg in each chamber of her honeycomb.

The larva- The larva is growing inside the egg, and after a few days, it hatches. The worker bees will feed and take care of the larva until they reach the next milestone. The larva will shed their skin 4-5 times as they grow. Around day nine, the larva will stop eating and spin a cocoon forming a pupa, much as a caterpillar does. The cocoon is sealed into the chamber by the worker bees.

The pupa- In the pupa stage, the bees begin to develop. You will start to see legs, eyes and wings. When the bees reach maturity, they will begin to chew their way out of the cell emerging as adults. This stage takes around 10 to 23 days.

The adult stage is the final stage of metamorphosis, and the bee is now fully grown. Fertilised eggs become worker bees, and unfertilised eggs become drones or queen bees. If a new queen bee is born, it may replace a dying queen; if not, she will leave the colony to start her own.

Pollination is a process by which flowering plants can reproduce. For a plant to be able to produce offspring, it must be fertilised with pollen; the process allows it to develop seeds that will grow into new plants. Without pollination, plants wouldn’t be able to reproduce, which is why bees and butterflies are so important to our ecosystem. Some flowers can self pollinate, but most are cross-pollinators which means they need pollen from other flowers. Flowers produce nectar, a sweet liquid that bees and butterflies like to eat, while they are feeding on the nectar the pollen attaches to them, and they transfer it to the next flower.

There are many ways you can help increase the likelihood of bees visiting your garden, and one of the most important things you can do is plant flowers that bees are attracted to. There are many wildflowers that you can grow in your garden, but one you may not have thought about is weeds. Dandelions are essential; they flower earlier than most flowers, so if you can, create a small patch of garden where you can allow dandelions to grow. The bees will be pleased. One of the other things you can do to accommodate bees is to place some bee hotels around the garden to house solitary bees.

You can pretty much find bees wherever there are flowers. Bees flit from flower to flower, collecting pollen as they go. Bees feed on nectar and pollen for energy, protein and nutrients. But most of the pollen they collect is used as food for their larvae.