Honeybee
Honeybee
Insect
Collective name: a swarm · also: a colony
The busy golden-and-brown bee that lives in huge colonies and makes honey. A vital pollinator, it visits millions of flowers and dances to share where the best ones are.
💡 Fun Facts
- A single honeybee colony can be home to tens of thousands of bees, all working together as one big family.
- Honeybees tell each other where to find flowers by dancing a special 'waggle dance' inside the hive.
- To make just one jar of honey, the bees of a hive must visit around two million flowers.
📅 Through the Year
- Active:March to October
Name Story
Apis mellifera
means “the honey-bearing bee”
What does its name mean?
- Apis — beeLatin apis ‘bee’
- mellifera — honey-bearingLatin mel / mellis ‘honey’ + ferre ‘to bear, to carry’
A bee that carries honey — ferrying sweet nectar home to turn into the real thing. The scientist who named it later wished he’d said ‘honey-making’ instead, but ‘honey-bearing’ had already stuck.