It might seem a weird choice to buy a pet that may sting you at some point of its lifetime, but if people can domesticate a wild tiger, then why not a bee? Actually domesticating a single bee would be next to impossible. If you want to pet a bee, you would have to follow all the steps for beekeeping. Beekeeping is a sport, a passion and every such thing, followed by people around the world. Bee Sting is termed to be painful, but on the other side, it has its perks for human beings as well. Bees are also useful for various other purposes, that is why, they are termed as one of the commercial pets.
Beekeeping is said to be a task of the brave, but it is becoming pretty much common nowadays. Bees constitute an extremely important part of the food web and the nature’s cycle. They play an active role in pollination, and hence helps flowers to reproduce. That is why, plants are said to have asexual reproduction, because bees do the reproduction work for them. Along with pollination, bees also produce the natural sweetener, that is honey, which is said to have a lifetime of infinity, that is honey never expires. They extract nectar from plants and regulate it to form honey. Some interesting facts about honey bees are mentioned here.
- Kingship is followed in a beehive, that is there is a queen of the hive which lives on the top position, followed by drones and workers. Queen is the only bee that lays eggs in the hive, whereas all the chores and stuff are performed by the worker bees. The work inside the hive like cleaning, feeding the babies etc. and the work outside the hive, which includes collecting nectar and depositing them in the hive is performed by worker bees. The worker bees are usually the female bees, and the drones are the male ones. The purpose of male bees is to find a queen to mate. Mating happens in special allocations in the hive. This system resembles the human behaviour to a large extent.
- Honeybees are known to have 5 eyes, and the ability to see ultraviolet light. They are equipped with two pairs of wings, which stick up when flying. They have special kind of straw like tongue, which help them suck nectar from the flowers. They are also equipped with the ability to chew things.
- Why do honeybees travel thousands of miles to collect honey? They don’t do this for us, then for what reason is this process done? Actually honey is not collected, but produced by them with the help of nectar, which is then processed by some gestational processes of these bees. They produce honey and store them in their hives in summer season, which is meant to be their food for the winters. But we use this food as honey, which has become an important part of diet for human beings in today’s date. Bees have to travel thousands of miles each day. If we observe just a single bee, it collects just half a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. So, collecting honey for a hive is a group task, which is performed by the innumerable bees of that particular hive. In the same manner, there are millions of billions of bees present on the Earth, which fulfills the demands of their own hive, and the extra honey produced by them is used by human beings for fruitful purposes. Each beehive can produce approximately 45 kg of extra honey, which is harvested by the beekeeper.
- Beeswax is also a useful product obtained from honey bees. Beeswax is an extremely useful product and has a wide application, not just in the form of wax, but also as an edible agent. It is also used in making soaps and other such stuff. It might sound weird but the hives of the bees are also made of the waxy substance produced by bees
- Some peculiar facts about bees include that they dance to indicate their partners, where they might find food. This dance includes various steps to indicate. Bees have a capability of recognizing human faces just the way we do, that is by differentiating various parts of human face. It is a common misconception that bees die after they sting. Well, this is true to some extent, that is if the skin part of the bee goes alongwith the sting, Otherwise, they can even survive after stinging.
Bees constitute an indispensable part of nature. Due to the change i climatic conditions, the population of bees is depleting, creating a loophole on the food web. So a new profession or a passion has come to limelight, that is beekeeping. It is, in a manner, a way to have a swarm of bees as a pet. They are kept in artificial hives, so that honey can easily be extracted. If they are left to make natural hives, extracting honey would become a difficult task. So, they are kept in artificial hives. Extracting honey from these hives is also not easy, as the bees can sting. So proper protective gear is needed for having these bees as a pet. They are a decent pet as they don’t litter, nor do they ask for much care. They would return to their home everyday, so caging them or anything of that sort would also not be required. All you would need is a protective gear, everytime you wish to talk to them or just wish to stop by them to say Hello!