In Conversation with A Honey Bee

I sat down in the cool shade of a huge tree in my garden and drew in a deep breath. A pleasant breeze blew, bringing with it the fragrance of flowers and I savoured the serenity and tranquility all around me. I opened my book about a murder mystery and started to read. I had only read a few sentences when my peace was disturbed by a buzzing sound near my left ear.

Buzzzz….buzzzz. I looked around, twisting my head from left to right in order to locate the source of this constant buzzing. Suddenly, a honey bee came in my field of vision and my blood froze in horror. ‘I am about to get stung by a honey bee,’ I thought in panic. Images of red bumps, swelling and itching came to my mind and I was petrified.

The bee landed on my book and looked straight at me.

‘Buzzzz...hello,’ it said.

‘Err…hello’, I gulped and replied.

‘Are you the writer who once interviewed a house fly?’ It asked.

I was astonished and pleased to be recognized. ‘Well yes,’ I tried to answer modestly. ‘I did indeed interview a housefly and a mosquito and both interviews got published in Young World magazine.’ 

‘Will you take my interview too?’ The bee asked. I thought it looked a bit sad and forlorn. ‘Anything to save myself from getting stung,’ I thought. ‘Er…yes, if you are ready to answer a few questions,’ I replied. 

‘You see, I would like to tell the world about our services to the human race and the environment before we disappear from the face of this earth,’ it said.

‘What!!’ I exclaimed. 

‘In case you haven’t noticed, our population is fast declining. And it won’t be long before we are extinct like many other species on this planet due to the shenanigans of the human race.’

I sat there dumbfounded. No more bees, I thought frantically. What about honey? What will I use on other side of my buttered toast? How will I soothe my throat next time I have a sore throat or flu? 

 I scrambled around and luckily found my notebook and a pen in my bag.

‘Okay, I said trying to look professional. ‘Please tell me more about yourself. I mean facts that are lesser known about honey bees,’ I fired my first question. 

‘There are around 20,000 species of bees on planet Earth. Though people think of us in yellow and black colours, we come in many colours and sizes and not all bees make honey,’ answered my guest.

‘And how do you make honey?’ I asked, thinking of the jar in my kitchen cupboard.

‘Making honey is one of the finest examples of hard work and organized team work you will ever see,’ the bee replied proudly. ‘Worker honey bees fly up to 5km searching for flowers to get the sweet nectar. Usually, one honey bee visits between 50 and 100 flowers per trip. We suck up nectar droplets from the flower’s nectary using our long straw-like tongue called proboscis. The nectar is broken down into simpler sugars so that it stays in a liquid form in our stomach. 

Then the worker honey bees return to the colony, and pass the nectar to the house bees by regurgitating the liquid. House bees pack the nectar into hexagon-shaped honey cells. Then they turn the nectar into honey by drying it out by flapping their wings to make warm wind. There are about 60,000 bees in each colony and a colony of bees can visit up to 50 million flowers each day to collect nectar.’

‘Oh! Wow!’ My jaw almost dropped open at the numbers.

‘But what if a bee has already sucked nectar from a flower? How do other bees know which flowers still have nectar?’ I asked.

‘Now that’s a very good question,’ said the bee. ‘After we have visited a flower, we leave behind a chemical which acts like a sticky note. It tells other bees that one of us has already sucked up its nectar so they don’t bother visiting and move on to other flowers. By the time nectar is replenished in the flower, the effects of the chemical is also worn off.’

This time my jaw did drop open. I could only marvel at Nature’s awesomeness and couldn’t even think of another question. 

‘Do you know making honey isn’t the only useful thing we do?’ the bee broke the silence. ‘When we visit flowers, we also pick up pollen – a kind of powder which flower, plants, trees and grasses make and spread to help more of the same plants grow around them. So by transferring pollen we make sure more plants grow. In fact, about one-third of the food humans eat is pollinated by us.’ 

‘Hmmm… so what would happen if the population of bees declines?’

‘This would have a very devastating rippling effect on ecosystems. A number of plants that depend upon pollination by us would disappear. For example cherries and blueberries plants would become rare. There is no doubt, without us, the availability and diversity of fresh fruits and vegetables would decline to a great extent. And of course honey too,’

I stared at the bee with a glum face. What a catastrophe!

‘What can we do to help?’ I asked humbly.

‘Our population is declining in many parts of the world largely because of air pollution, drought, insecticide use, habitat loss and global warming. Our biggest problem is lack of safe habitats where we can build our homes and find a variety of nutritious food sources. The best thing human beings can do for our survival is to plant bee friendly gardens. We need plants which are rich in pollen and nectar. If there’s no space for gardens, flowers can be grown in planters, flower pots, window boxes on balconies and rooftops. Your government must control too much use of toxic pesticides and herbicides. 

And can you people please stop cutting trees. Trees are not only a great food source for us, but also an essential habitat. Tree leaves and resin provide us with nesting material, while natural wood cavities make excellent shelters. When will you realize what a devastating effect deforestation has on wildlife which is in fact necessary for your own survival?’ 

I was feeling vey ashamed by now and couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

‘Buzzzz….I have to go now and look for more nectar. But can I say one thing before I leave? Jane Goodall, a very famous anthropologist, once said, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.” Please heed her words and decide what kind of impact you want to make on planet Earth.’ 

My tiny guest flew away leaving me deep in thought. I hope this interview makes you think about this industrious insect too and how we can play our part in saving it from extinction. 

Fun Facts About Honey Bees

• There is a surah (chapter) in the Holy Quran named after honey bees…Surah Nahl

• The honey bee is the only insect which produces food eaten by man.

• The queen bee lives for about 2-3 years. In summer she lays up to 2500 eggs a day.

• Male bees in the hive are called drones

• An average honey bee actually makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

• The honey bee’s wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzzing noise.

• Bees are important because they pollinate approximately 130 agricultural crops including fruits, nuts, berries and vegetable crops. . 

• Honey stored in air tight containers never spoils. Sealed honey vats found in Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb still contained edible honey, despite over 2,000 years beneath the sands.

• The residence of a bee, the beehive, is a true wonder in itself. In fact, according to ancient Roman scholar Marcu Terentius Varro, the hexagonal structure is the best possible tessellating shape which can used to create a compact and easily replicable structure.  

• The honey bees do an amazing dance like movement called the Waggle Dance. This allows a bee to communicate the location of pollen rich flowers to its fellow bees. 

• Karl von Frisch, a professor of zoology in Munich, Germany, spent 50 years studying bee language and earned the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his research on bees and their waggle dance.

• 30% of world’s bee population has been lost in the past 10 years.

First published on Dawn's Young World