Western Honey Bee

A colony that behaves like one animal

A honey bee colony can hold tens of thousands of bees, with a single queen, many female workers and a smaller number of males. Bees divide the work and communicate to find food and make decisions.

Buzz, pipe and dance

The familiar buzz is produced by the wings beating several hundred times a second. Queens make piping sounds that signal to other queens and workers. Returning foragers perform the waggle dance, a figure-of-eight pattern that tells nestmates the direction and distance to flowers, and the dancer also produces vibrations that others pick up through the comb.

Pollination and pressures

Bees pollinate a large share of the crops people eat. Parasitic mites, pesticides, disease and loss of flowers have caused heavy colony losses in many places, so planting varied flowering plants helps both honey bees and wild bees.

Conservation status follows the IUCN Red List as we understand it at the time of writing. Assessments are revised regularly, so please check the IUCN Red List for the current listing.