Animal Activities #70

Hi, greetings to you lovelies...

What comes to your mind when you hear the name bees? Have you even seen a bee in real life? Have you ever come across a swamp of bees?

Sit tight as I gist you a little about bees.

Ever wonder how honey is produced or manufactured?
Bees are the producers of honey. Bees feed on nectars which gets converted by an enzyme known as invertase. This enzyme converts the sucrose from these necters into simple sugars known as glucose and fructose. Honey is a natural substance that can stay for years and never get spoilt. Isn't that amazing?

Bees are generally regarded as social animals, infact to be specific, they are eusocial animals which means they are truly social. This is because of their communal lifestyle and how they cooperate and interact amongst themselves.

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Bees are very important organisms in the ecosystem as they are agents of pollination in plants. The also provide us with honey.

Majorly, the bees are made up of three subgroups; the Queen, the drones and the workers.

The Queen: the Queen is the only fertile female and she's responsible for laying all the eggs.

The drones: These are fertile males whose sole responsibility is mating with the Queen.

The worker: The workers are sterile females that performs all other tasks such as defending the hive, cleaning as well as foraging.

In Africa, bees natural habit is usually holes found on trees. Though some swamps are usually found on trees branches; these ones don't usually stay for long. Maybe just a few number of days and they relocate from there but those ones that usually settled inside holes found on trees often stay for a longer period of time. These are they ones that usually make honey.

Over the years, people have tried to mimick the holes found on trees by making a small box and hanging it on trees so bees can settle in there and produce honey.

While I was still staying in the village, we often go out to harvest bees. We often go at night when the bees are all settled in their honey comb.

We use smoke and fire to chase them out before harvesting the honey from these holes. This process is very dangerous and most times, you get stung by a bee.

Bees generally love sweet scents and that is why you always find them around fruits like pineapple, watermelon and mangoes.

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The local bees here in Nigeria gets attracted to perfumes that is why we are often warmed not to put any body spray anytime we are going to farm. This is to avoid attracting bees as their sting is so painful.

I was once stung by several bees one unfortunate evening. It was mango season. I went to plug some mangoes from a nearby farm, unknowingly for me, there was a swamp of bees on the tree. My noise and disturbance awakened them and they really gave me the beating of my life. My entire head was stung by bees, my body was so hot like the placed hot coals on it. I had to run for my dear life. I left my sandals there. It was the next day that my elder brother went and retrieve my sandals for me. All through that year, I never passed through that route again to avoid being beaten by another swamp of angry bees 😀.

• Tell me the little you know about bees.

• Have you ever tasted honey? Do you like the taste?

• Would you have honey as a substitute for refined sugar?

• Have you ever been stung by a bee?

• What will be your reaction if you ever encountered a swamp of bees?

I invite my Amazing friends to join the contest @vickyson @jsminemary and @ashley-p