From A to Bee

A worker will only live for about six weeks whereas a queen can live for up to five years.
• After her mating trip, the queen will keep laying eggs for the rest of her life at a rate of up to 2,500 eggs per day.
• The queen can select whether she fertilises an egg or not – if she fertilises the egg she creates a worker, if she chooses not to, a drone is the result.

if the queen suddenly dies, within fifteen minutes the colony will be aware of this and will immediately set about raising a new queen. This is also true if they feel that the queen is losing a bit of strength or if she has accidentally been damaged; the bees will start raising a new one, even if she is still present in the hive.

bee colonies are being wiped out at a rate of at least 30 per cent per year,

The average worker bee, in their lifetime of only six weeks, despite flying for hundreds upon hundreds of miles, will only make one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.

In just one hive there can be up to 60,000 bees but just the one queen (!).
• To make one jar of honey (you know, your regular 454 gram jar from the supermarket) the bees from a beehive would have made at least 25,000 flights to gather