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Western honey bees show several nest-site preferences: the height above ground is usually between 1 metre (3.3 ft) and 5 metres (16 ft), entrance positions tend to face downward, equatorial-facing entrances are favored, and nest sites over 300 metres (980 ft) from the parent colony are preferred. [5] Most bees occupy nests for several years.
Honey bees consume about 8.4 lb (3.8 kg) of honey to secrete 1 lb (450 g) of wax, [1] and so beekeepers may return the wax to the hive after harvesting the honey to improve honey outputs. The structure of the comb may be left basically intact when honey is extracted from it by uncapping and spinning in a centrifugal honey extractor .
The honey buzzard attacks bees' nests and eats the larvae. [91] The greater honeyguide interacts with humans by guiding them to the nests of wild bees. The humans break open the nests and take the honey and the bird feeds on the larvae and the wax. [92]
Tetragonula carbonaria forms honeycombs in their nests. [7] The bee produces an edible honey; the whole nest is sometimes eaten by Indigenous Australians. [8] The bees "mummify" invasive small hive beetles (Aethina tumida) that enter the nest by coating and immobilising the invaders in wax, resin, and mud or soil from the nest. [9]
Not attracted to lights at night unless nest is disturbed, or light is placed near hive, or bee is sick. [5] Attracted to lights at night [6] [7] Lives in Large colonies of flat, wax-based honeycomb hanging vertically. Small cavities in the soil or sometime above ground in dark cavities. Commonly uses small rodent nests, may use bird cavity nests.
Nest cavity ranges from 10 to 15 liters with a round comb structure that tends to be uneven. A. c. japonica will also dismantle an old hive before moving on to a new one. [4] while western honeybee colonies can have over 50,000 worker bees, a Japanese honeybee colony's maximum number of worker bees is 6,000 to 7,000
The western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] The genus name Apis is Latin for 'bee', and mellifera is the Latin for 'honey-bearing' or 'honey-carrying', referring to the species' production of honey.
Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. The three types of honey bees in a hive are: queens (egg-producers), workers (non-reproducing females), and drones (males whose main duty is to find and mate with a queen). Unlike the worker bees, drones do not sting.