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Image courtesy of anankkml
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Even being the queen bee is no prize. The queen bee doesn’t
issue orders; she doesn’t control
anything in the hive. Her one role is to lay
eggs, which she does all day long, in 30-second intervals. She’ll lay up to
2,000 per day, which is more than her body weight. She only leaves the hive
once or twice in her life. Oh, and she gets to be queen by assassinating all
the other baby queen bees.
Drone bees famously exist just to have sex. Sounds like that
might be OK, right? Except the “lucky” drone bees who get to get it on with the
queen die because they explode during sex, which happens in the air, with their
genitals tearing off to remain lodged in the queen while the rest of their body
falls to the ground.
And the ones who don’t have sex with her get driven out
of the hive to starve to death.
If you’re a bee, keeping a low profile and just being a
worker doesn’t make things much better. Worker bees make honey by transferring
the nectar from the tongue of the bee who collected it to another bee who holds
it on her tongue until the liquid evaporates, turning the substance into honey.
(Changes how you think of honey, doesn’t it?)
And the wax they make? It oozes through pores on their
bodies and they chew it off, to make it soft enough to use.
And you know what keeps honey-bee hives warm – 93 degrees
Fahrenheit in the center – in cold weather?
The worker bees’ shivering.
Yeah, be glad you’re not a honey bee.
My name, Melissa, comes from the Greek word for honey bee. I read where that means I'm sweet but I have a little sting, too. :)
ReplyDeleteOkay. I will never complain about anything anymore, or if I do, I will say at least I'm not a honey bee.
ReplyDelete