Bee Facts

• Honey is made up of 18 per cent water, 80 per cent natural sugars and 2 per cent minerals, pollen, and protein. The sugar content is largely a combination of fructose and glucose and the balance of these two sugars determines whether the honey is clear or set.
  
  
• Honey bees are sometimes mistaken for wasps (which also have stripped abdomens and a sting) The main visible differences are that wasps are bright yellow with yellow on their faces and on their legs. They also have longer antennae than honey bees. A wasp can sting repeatedly but a bee can only sting once.


• Honey is produced all over the world. The aroma, colour and flavour are determined by the local flowers. Spain & France produce sunflower honey, mean while Australia is the home of the eucalyptus honey. Acacia honey is very common in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. and
   
• A Honey bee flies at the speed of 15 miles an hour and it will visit between 50 and 100 flowers during one collection trip.
  

  Children's Bee Gifts

   
• The average bee will produce approximately one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey during its lifetime.


• The wings of a bee beat 11,440 times per minute and this is the buzzing sound that we hear.
   
• Honey never goes rotten, a jar of 2000 year old honey in an Egyptian tomb was said to taste delicious.
   
• A colony of bees consists of one queen bee, tens of thousands of female worker bees and sometimes a few male bees or drones.
   
• Honey has been known to be used as a mild antiseptic and historically was used to treat cuts and burns and as a dressing for wounds.
   
• The bee has been used as an emblem by popes; Egyptian kings and by Napoleon- his flag showed a line of bees fighting.
  
  
• Learn more about the fascinating lives of bumblebees, support our vital conservation work or join online at   www.bumblebeeconservationtrust.co.uk