Naturehood

‘No one knew they existed’: wild heirs of lost British honeybee found at Blenheim The ‘ecotype’, thought to have been wiped out by disease and invasive species, is thriving in the estate’s ancient woodlands

📷 unknown

https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2020/december/doug-tallamy-native-plants-food-web-insects-birds-survival-earth/?fbclid=IwAR2j50Hje-iRkxBNi4yPU5zrrsAzH-Yzh-8yoZWlEAIfeOGD3HVYjUKPPns

Powerhouse plants | UDaily UD researchers identify key native plants that support shrinking number of insects, stabilize food webs

Young worker bees are charged with the task of making beeswax for the colony. Soon after a new worker bee emerges as an adult, it begins producing wax. Honey bee workers have four pairs of special wax-secreting glands on the undersides of their abdomens. From these glands, they secrete liquified wax, which hardens into thin scales when exposed to the air. As the worker bee ages, these glands atrophy and the task of making wax is left to younger bees.

During its peak wax production phase, a healthy worker bee can produce about eight scales of wax in a 12 hour period. The bee colony requires about 1,000 wax scales to make a single gram of beeswax for their comb. The geometry of the honeycomb allows the bee colony to maximize their storage space while minimizing the quantity of wax needed to build the structure.