Honeybees Apis mellifera Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera	Humans have used the honey produced by bees, for thousands of years. Honey bees are kept in special groups of man-made hives, although they do live in the wild too. In the last 100 years, humans have started to breed gentle types of bees, which also produce a lot of honey. People eat the honey or use it for medicinal purposes. Worker bees have different jobs to do, depending on their age. When they are young, they feed the developing bee larvae. When they are a bit older, their job is to keep the hive cool by fanning it with their wings. Later on, their job is to keep the nest clean. Finally - their job is to go on food collecting expeditions, flying off to collect pollen and nectar from flowers.
	Habitat	In the wild, honey bees build their nests (hives) in trees. Bees are very social insects, living communally. If they are managed by humans, the hives are kept together in groups known as an "apiary".
	Moving around	Bees are excellent flyers. They are also good at crawling around - which is necessary for collecting pollen and nectar from flowers and for moving around in their nest.
	Feeding They eat: nectar and pollen. Flowers attract bees, by colourful petals, and sweet scented nectar. The bees then feed on the pollen and nectar. When they fly on to the next flower, some of the pollen is rubbed off on the new flower. This allows plant fertilisation to take place.	Bees are important as plant pollinators. Bees collect pollen in tiny baskets on their back legs. The bee flies back to its nest (hive), and stores pollen, and nectar as honey. The honey is stored in a waxy cell, within the nest, and is later used to feed the grubs and the worker bees. If the honey is taken by humans, the bees may have to be fed syrup so that they can survive through the winter. They are eaten by: Birds.
	Reproduction                   There is a good reason for this complex life cycle. The grub stage of the insect, is specialised for feeding. The adult, is totally different, and is specialised for breeding.	In a hive - you can find 3 types of bee - the Queen, the workers (females) and the males (drones). 1. The "Queen" is a fertilised female. She produces hundreds of eggs every day. 2. Female "Workers", who do all the work in the hive. 3. Male "Drones". Their only job is to fertilise new queens. The Queen lays a single egg in each cell. The eggs hatch to produce larvae (grubs). These are very unlike the adults. The grubs grow and moult many times, eventually turning into a pupa (chrysalis). Inside the pupa, the body changes dramatically. The winged adult finally emerges. This transformation is known as complete metamorphosis. The egg hatches into a grub, which changes into a pupa. The pupa later hatches into an adult. The eggs, grubs and pupae are stored in waxy cells within the nest. Worker bees feed the growing grubs. New grubs are fed on royal jelly, which is a special nutritious type of saliva produced by the bees. Later, they are fed on honey and digested pollen. When grubs turn into pupae, the worker bees seal the cells, to leave the pupae in peace, until they emerge as young adults.
	Breathing	Bees, breath through a network of tunnels in their body, which open up through holes known as "spiracles".
	Size	Worker Bee - 13 mm (the smallest) Queen Bee - 20 mm Drone - 16 mm
	Fun Facts     The egg-laying apparatus of female bees is modified as a sting, used for defence. The male bees have no stings.   A honey bee nest could contain 80,000 female workers, a few hundred male drones and just one queen.   The honeycomb is made of wax (which comes out of the workers' underside) and propolis, a substance collected from tree buds.	When a bee finds a good source of nectar, it flies back to the hive to tell the other bees. It does a "waggle dance" which shows the other bees how far away the food is, and in which direction!     The queen bee and the female workers survive the winter by living off the honey and pollen collected during the summer. The male drones however, are driven out of the hive each winter.   If the larva is fed only on royal jelly it emerges as a queen.   There are many different types of bees, including the buff-tailed bumble bee, red-tailed carder bee, early mining bee, patchwork leaf-cutter bee, and the Hill Cuckoo bee, to name but a few.