Are Bees Better Flyers than Airplanes?

Queen Cheyenne and Princess Emilia flew on an airplane to many states in 2025! We flew to Wisconsin, Nevada, Florida, Kentucky, and more! This made us think…are honeybees better flyers than airplanes?

Honeybee can beat their two pairs of wings at 11,700 times per minute, that is pretty fast! That fast buzzing is also what makes their distinct buzzing sound. Additionally, bees don’t move their wings up and down, like birds; or have motors like an airplane. Bees move their wings in a figure-eight pattern which allows them to have more lift and control when they fly.

Because of this, there are some interesting things that honeybees do that planes cannot:

• Hover in place like a helicopter
  
  

• Fly backwards and sideways
  
  

• Turn quickly in mid-air
  
  

• Land on flowers without crashing
  
  

• Carry heavy loads like nectar and pollen while still flying 12 mph!

Scientists were unsure of how honeybees and bumblebees could fly because their bodies are too big for their wings to typically handle! However, they defy the odds because of their strong flight muscles in their body and fast speed.

So even though bees are small, they are some of the best pilots in the natural world! 

Honeybees Waggle Dance and Help Make Our Food

Did you know that honeybees can dance? But they don’t dance just for fun; they dance to share important information with the other bees in their hive. This special bee dance is called the waggle dance, and it helps honeybees communicate about the floral sources they find. When bees visit flowers, they also help plants grow through something called pollination.

When a honeybee finds a flower full of sweet nectar or pollen, she flies back to the hive to tell her sisters. Instead of talking, she dances! The waggle dance is a special kind of bee behavior where the bee wiggles her body while moving in a figure-eight shape. The direction, angle to the sun, and the intensity of her vibrations that she dances tell the other bees which way to fly, and the speed of her wiggle shows how far the flowers are. 

Why do bees need flowers, and why do flowers need bees? Flowers give bees nectar and pollen. Nectar is a sweet liquid syrup that bees drink and then turn into honey, and pollen is a yellow powdery substance that bees use for protein. When bees collect pollen, they also drop some of it from flower to flower, which helps the plant reproduce. This is called pollination. Pollination helps flowers grow seeds, and seeds grow into fruits and vegetables. Without bees, we wouldn’t have many of the foods we eat, like apples, blueberries, cucumbers, and pumpkins.

Their waggle dance helps the hive find the best flowers for the honeybee colony, and their visits to flowers help plants grow and make our food. So the next time you see a bee buzzing by, remember she might be dancing soon to tell her friends about the tasty flowers she found! Try planting bee-friendly flowers like lavender and sunflowers in your garden.

Different Ways to Help Honey Bees

Honey bees are vital for the pollination of many of our fruits and vegetables. Making sure we are all doing our part in helping them survive and grow is very important. 

Honey bee population numbers in the United States have been decreasing over time until about 10 years ago, but the population numbers have remained fairly stable since then. However, there are several things we can do to help honey bee populations.

1. Grow a bee friendly garden:
• Planting garden flowers and native wildflowers are a great source of nectar for honey bees! Some key flowers to plant are bee balm, sunflowers, lavender, goldenrod, and many more! In addition, planting trees, such as maples or black cherries, provide many blooms that support honey bees.
2. Avoid pesticides and herbicides
• Using pesticides and herbicides can be harmful to honey bees and other pollinators. Not using pesticides and herbicides can help honey bees, but if they need to be applied make sure to not apply them when flowers are blooming and do it at dusk or dawn when honey bees are not foraging.
3. Support beekeepers
• Buying honey and related products can be a great way to support honey bees. Another way to support both beekeepers and honey bees is to contact a beekeeper if you see a honey bee swarm. Beekeepers can help provide a safer home for honey bee swarms, which helps everyone out in the end.
4. Be an advocate for honey bees
• Teach others the importance of honey bees and other pollinators and ways they can help. Not everyone understands that honey bees are the number one pollinator in the world and their survival and success is so important!

There are many other ways to help honey bees and other pollinators, but this is a great list to help you get started! Be sure to do your part in helping the survival of honey bees, as they are vital to the pollination of so many of our foods.

Calling a local beekeeper about honey bee swarms
is a great way to help out honey bee populations!

How Honey Bee Pollination Works

If it weren’t for honey bees and other pollinators, we would lose out on a lot of food that we eat on a daily basis, such as apples, oranges, and almonds. In fact, ⅓ of the food crops we eat are dependent on pollination and 80% of the pollination is done by honey bees. 

Pollination of flowers and crops is accomplished by honey bees through a simple process. Honey bees land on flowers to primarily collect nectar to make into honey, but also collect pollen on the millions of hairs that they have. They then fly to other flowers of the same type and pollen is dropped off when the honey bees collect more nectar. This then pollinates the blooms so that fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are able to grow into the food we eat. More specifically, the pollen from the anther of a flower sticks to honey bees which is then inadvertently carried to the stigma of the flower, which is shown in the picture below.

Honey bee pollination is done by carrying pollen from
the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower.

What do Bees Eat?

Did you know that honeybees eat more than just honey? They eat a couple different types of food to stay healthy and have energy to work!

Of course honeybees eat honey! They make it from nectar, the sugary substance flowers make to invite the bees to visit. The honeybees gather this nectar to make into honey. You can learn about how honeybees make honey in our past post called “How Do Honeybees Make Honey?” The honey they eat is the source of carbohydrates and gives them energy. Did you know that honey is a good energy source for humans too!

The pollen baskets are packed full!

Honeybees also eat pollen (a powdery substance flowers make) for their protein. They mix the pollen with nectar and pack it onto their back legs into their pollen baskets. They then carry the pollen home to feed to the brood (baby bees). This pollen keeps the honeybees healthy so they can fight off infection in the hive and help the baby bees grow big and strong.

The milky substance inside the cells is royal jelly.

Royal jelly is a milky, protein rich substance that the honeybees feed special eggs to make them become a queen bee. If the egg wasn’t fed royal jelly then it would become a worker bee, but when an egg is fed the special food it supercharges their development so that they are able to lay eggs and become a queen bee. Royal jelly is made from glands in the bees’ head. Some people like to eat royal jelly because it has so many healthy proteins in it. While it doesn’t turn you into a queen bee it can be a great way to keep yourself healthy.

Lastly, honeybees drink water. All living animals need water and honeybees are no different. They look for slow moving sources of water because honeybees can drown. Pollinating and collecting nectar is a hard job and the worker bees need somewhere safe to land to take a drink of water. We wrote back in February about how you can build your own bee water bath!

Other than honey, find these in the hive!

Everyone who enjoys honey loves it for the taste and the unique, sweet flavor it possesses. We use it for cooking, as a natural sweetener, and even for medicinal purposes! However, many people don't know about the other products honeybees use and produce in the hive!

Honeybees make beeswax to form their hive. The bees create hexagonal shaped cells with the beeswax to store honey and pollen in. The cells also serve as a temporary home for the larvae (the developing bees). People may purchase beeswax with the honey still inside the cells, which is known as comb honey.

Comb honey is the most natural form of honey because it is bought exactly as it comes from the hive. Other than comb honey, there is chunk honey, which is a chunk of comb honey in a jar of liquid honey. Beeswax is used in plenty of cosmetics because of its soothing and healing properties. Beeswax may also be used to create candles; the candles have a very fresh, delicate honey smell, and they last quite a long time!

Propolis is what honeybees use to seal the cracks of their hive; the propolis makes the hive safer and more sanitary. Propolis is very beneficial for not only the honeybees, but also humans. Propolis contains anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties. It is so rich in beneficial properties because it is made from sap in trees and resin from the tops of leaves and plants along with honeybee saliva and beeswax.

Pollen is a powdery substance honeybees carry from flower to flower to successfully pollinate. To gather it, honeybees collect the pollen on the backs of their legs in their pollen baskets. Then they bring the pollen home to produce bee bread. Bee bread is a mixture of honey and pollen that is fed to the larvae. Humans may also consume pollen; it contains plenty of nutrients and a lot of protein. People may buy it to use on salads and in smoothies. Pollen is a great source of protein for vegetarians.

There are so many different amazing products of the hive people may purchase and use in their life. Make sure you talk to a local beekeeper and try some for yourself!

Flavors of Honey

Honey is one of the best foods both for you and flavor wise. Did you know there’s over 300 varieties of honey in the United States? Honey comes in many colors and flavors. Some are a strong and dark in color like buckwheat honey. Others are a light, almost water white, with a light flavor like basswood. 

The flavor of honey is dependent on the nectar sources gathered by the honeybees. Because of this, different states have different kinds of honey. The different flowers where the nectar comes from is what determines the flavor and color of honey.

If a bee visits the flower of a fruit tree, such as an orange or apple tree, traces of that flavor can be found in the honey. This makes them great to use in smoothies. If a honey bee visits the buckwheat, a cover crop with grain like seeds, the honey is darker and bolder in flavor and is wonderful in cooking meats and baking.

A fun experiment would be to find all the flavors of honey available in your area to find your favorite. Each time you go to a new state try their honey to see how it’s different from yours.

Lessons from the Honeybee

Happy New Year! Here are some fun and educational activities to learn hands-on about pollination and honey. Try them at home or at school! Click on the "Lessons" tab above for more resources.

Cheese Balls Pollination Activity

Draw two flower shapes on a white piece of paper. Glue a white muffin cup in the center of one and fill it with cheese balls. Eat all the cheese balls--be careful not to lick your fingers! Then touch your fingers to the other flower. You just "pollinated" your flower! The cheese residue represents pollen and your fingers represent the fuzzy bees!

Honey, I Love You!

There are so many ways to use honey! It is delicious to eat, can soothe a sore throat or heal a cut,  helps beautify skin and hair and provides energy! See if you can use honey in these four areas this month: baking, healing, beauty and energy. Print off the coloring sheet below (made by a former honey queen!) for ideas.

Most Important Job

What do you think about when you hear the word Pollination? Honeybees are a big part of pollinating one third of the food we eat. Honeybees have a lot of hair on their bodies, and when they are flying the wind is blowing through their hair, which creates static electricity. Then when they land on the flower the pollen will literally hop on their backs because it is attracted to that electricity.  As the bees move from flower to flower, the same process will happen.  Some of the pollen that they already have sticking to their hair will fall off onto the other flowers, which is the process of pollination.

https://vavai.com/2014/02/

Some of the many fruits and vegetables that bees help pollinate are pears, apples, mangos, watermelons, strawberries, green beans, celery, onions, peas, and tomatoes, they also help pollinate coffee! But food is not all that bees pollinate. They also pollinate cotton, and alfalfa, which the cotton we use for clothing and the alfalfa we use to feed our dairy cows. Did you know that almonds are actually 100% dependent on bee pollination and commercial beekeepers will travel with their bees to California to help pollinate the almonds?

http://treefruit.wsu.edu/orchard-management/pollination/honey-bees/    

As you can see there are many different things that bees help pollinate for us. If you really think about it, the next time you are eating a meal, figuratively every third bite you take would be pollinated by bees. Bees are very vital to the human diet and to the environment.