THE AMAZING BEE. By Angela Bernales

For people who live in the city, unaware of how the natural world survive in today environment, maybe "the world of the honeybee" is only a confusing mass of insects that manage to work in the production of honey. Well, BEES are an amazing example of work ethic and have abilities far out of proportion in comparison to their size.
A typical colony have three types of bees : queen, drones, and workers.  The queen is the only fertile female, and her only task is to produce offsprings.
All the drones are males; their main task is to fertilize the queen.
Workers, the remaining females (not able to produce offsprings) are the majority and much more complex in their organization. Each has several definite, specialized duties to perform.
Cleaning bees, brood nurses that care for the growing larvae, building bees, guard bees, and bees that collect pollen and nectar , are a good example. All these tasks are performed by all of them in a sequence that is determining by age.
The young bee's first job is to clean the hive's cells for about three days. As the bee gets older, she progresses in turn to nursing, building, storing, guarding, and foraging. Each worker's responsibility is to patrol and inspect the hive at regular intervals to see what has to be done. If, for example, there is more need for nursing or foraging, the worker will take it upon herself and will adapt accordingly.
It is an essential factor in their efficiency the ability to communicate with one another. They, like many other insects, accomplish this by transmitting their own chemical messages through odors secreted from various glands in their bodies. Each odor tells its own story forming together a powerful language.
Another way of communication is "dancing." When a forager bee wants to let her fellow workers know the location of a food source, she performs an energetic round dance, involving a series of rapid circles. If the source is further away the dance takes the form of the number eight.
The more we observe them the more we learn from this extraordinary and intelligent insect, capable of maintain an efficient and orderly community with the purpose of producing honey to the world.