The bee is one of the most important insects which importance is dual. On the one hand for the humans and on the other hand for nature. Thanks to the bee, 60-70% of plant fertilization takes place, while the continuous decrease in its population has become a main worry for many scientists. This can be translated into the sentence ‘if the bee is threatened, much of the planet’s life tends to disappear’.

It is considered one of the oldest inhabitants of the planet with an age of over 15 million years with which man early understood its importance and thanks to his attempt domesticated and exploited it. Cave paintings with an age at least 8000 years old ago, are also witnesses to the whole project and capable to depict the man’s efforts to try extract honey from beehives.

Although an ‘old inhabitant’, however, it did not exist in America as the European settlers brought it with them. But later they evolved, and now we can tell that there are three main groups each of which has a few clans. The first group is the bees of East Asia with the representative of the ‘Indian bees’. Second group the African and third group the European with more than 10 tribes. We consider the Italian (Ligustica) and the Yugoslav (Carnica) to be the most well-known, while in Greece, the most widespread local space is Cecropia -from the mythical Athenian king Cecrops- in central Greece, Adami -from the Benedictine monk Brother Adam- while in the south- in island parts of Greece is Macedonica of which territories are considered Macedonia and Thrace.

Bees do not recognize red color.

Bees present a clear hierarchy and live in large families within the beehive and headed by the QUEEN, which is only one for each beehive with its main goal only the laying of eggs. The queen is fertilized only once by the drones (male bees) (10% of the hive) and lays about 1500 eggs, every day continuously, from two to five years. Its goal is to raise and grow the beehive.

In contrast with the Queen bee, the workers are all sterile, while each one has tasks that change as they grow. In addition, they do not live more than 5 weeks in the summer months, while 6 months is the maximum limit of their life for the winter months.

Bees produce honey, royal jelly and wax while they are assigned tasks based on their age.

They also know that the earth is round and can calculate degrees.

28 grams of honey is enough for a Bee to fly around the planet while flying at a speed of 30km/h. In order to find food they can travel a distance of radius 3-4 km, while in periods of scarcity, the distance can reach up to 8 km!

On their journey they visit about 50-100 flowers while they communicate with each other in a kind of dance in which their wings rise and fall about 11,400 times a minute.

For the production of one kilogram of honey, are needed 4-5 kilograms of nectar, while for the production of 1 gram of nectar 3 days of continuous work is required. Finally, bees must eat 8 kilos of honey to produce just 1 kilo of wax!

Bee loses 20% of its body proteins, working 15 days to produce wax, while approximately 22 Kg of pollen and 70 Kg of honey are the annual nutritional needs of a bee and to collect these quantities are carried out during the year one million pollinator flights which are equal to four million honeybee nectar trips!

The hexagonal shape of the honeycomb cells utilizes the available space in the best possible way because they save material, capacity and stability!

The bee’s blood is cold, while they have the ability to recognize the death of their queen through their sense of smell.

Changing the queen will automatically change the personality and behavior of the whole bee colony (beehive).

There are more than 12,000 different species of bees.

Honey has been produced for more than 150 years.

Worker bees, although smaller, they do most of the work while drones (male bees) do not have stingers. If they don’t manage to fertilize the queen, they are immediately killed, but even if they fertilize her, they still die due to their genetic makeup.

If the queen wants to be successful, it must return to the nest with 5.5 million sperms in her scrotum, and to achieve this, she mates with 8-10 drones! From that moment, it never pairs again! Fertilized eggs become workers or queens and the unfertilized, drones.

Workers are sexually sterile female bees.

Bees are among the friendliest creatures on the planet since they don’t recognize their beekeeper, which means that if someone knows the art of beekeeping, they can open any hive without them objecting it. Even in the hives there are workaholics and hustlers like drones. Based on research, it has found that some bees are more bold and others less, while agitated bees can be a bit pessimistic, showing to some extent that they can have some kind of ‘feelings’. With a brain the size of a pin head, bees have excellent vision and a very good memory, and they are not guided only by their instincts. Finally they prove to be the most economical builders on the planet with the honeycombs using the minimum percentage of wax depicting a perfect hexagon!

Thanks to bees, most jobs are created since they fertilize 80% of crops pollinated by insects, i.e. crops worth over 20 billion dollars every year. (According to data from the US Department of Home Affairs).

The toxin ‘melittin’ found in bee’s venom provides protection against the HIV virus while its sting relieves the pain that caused by rheumatoid arthritis.

As the bee changes workplaces, its brain chemistry also changes.

Bees use ‘propolis’ to close holes, cracks and also disinfect their hive, while the same propolis is used by humans in order to fight bacteria, viruses and fungi. Its results are spectacular in the treatment of the respiratory system while it can relieve ear infections by providing simultaneous antioxidant properties and at the same time anticancer activity.

Bees are celebrated on World Bee Day, May 20.