The honey bee has been around for 30 million years.

Honeybees are the only insects that produce foods for humans.

Honeybees are vegetarians whose only food source is pollen and nectar, unlike wasps, hornets and bumblebees.

Honeybees can fly up to 15 mph and travel more than two miles from their hive in search of nectar and pollen.

Besides honey production, bees are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of all the foods worldwide that humans consume.

Honeybees are not native to North America. They arrived with the English colonists in the early 1600s and it is estimated that it took them half a century to make it to the West Coast. “The Native Americans called them the white man’s flies, when they saw them coming, they knew the white men were coming right behind.”

Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their central brood nest regardless of whether the outside temperature is 110 or -40 degrees.

The average honey bee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

Honey bees are entirely herbivorous when they forage for nectar and pollen but can cannibalize their own brood when stressed.

A healthy colony may contain 40,000 to 60,000 bees during the late spring or early summer.

A honeybee is the only species that dies after stinging. They have a barbed stinger which pulls away from their abdomen, along with a poison sac, as they leave the victim, killing the bee.

The brain of a worker honey bee is about a cubic millimeter but has the densest neuropile tissue of any animal. Honey is 80% sugars and 20% water.

Honey has been used for centuries as a topical dressing for wounds since microbes cannot live in it. It also produces hydrogen peroxide.

Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing".

Honey is not actually made by bees. It is the product of nectar being regurgitated and dehydrated by the bees several times, giving it the thick and potent consistency.

Bees do eat their own honey for nourishment. One teaspoon of honey packs enough energy for a single bee to fly around the world.

Honey is the only food which contains every nutrient that a human needs to survive, including water content.