Let's Bee Friends Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hymenoptera

Bees belong to the phylum Arthropoda and the class Insecta. The order to which they belong, Hymenoptera, also includes ants, wasps and sawflies. The precise number of different bee species is not known, but is probably around 20,000. They inhabit every continent with the exception of Antarctica. The best-known bee is the European honeybee (sometimes called the Western honeybee). Their coexistence with, and usefulness to, mankind can be traced back to ancient times; they feature in the mythology of several civilisations and were worshipped in many cultures.

Odonata relates to dragonflies and damselflies, and Dermaptera is the order to which earwigs belong. Coleoptera is the largest order of insects, made up of beetles and weevils.

Answer: in a mine in Myanmar (Burma)

The remains of the bee, which had been fossilised in amber, was found in a mine in the Hukawng Valley, in northern Myanmar. Although very small at around 3mm long, it had been remarkably well preserved. The bee, named Melittosphex burmensis, shared some of its characteristics with the wasp.

It is estimated that it dated back to around 100 million years old, in the Early Cretaceous period. Previous records had only dated bees back to around 65 million years old, so the find was a major scientific breakthrough.

Answer: apiarist

The word apiarist comes from the Latin 'apis', meaning bees. Other derivatives of the word are the name given to the study of bees, apiology, and apiary, meaning the place where honeybees and their hives are kept. Famous people to have kept bees include Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the first man to conquer Mount Everest. The terms lepidopterist, herpetologist and aquarist relate to the study of butterflies and moths, amphibians and reptiles, and fish respectively.

In literature, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes retired to the Sussex countryside to keep bees as referred to in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story 'His Last Bow'. Bees also feature in A A Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh' stories, honey being Pooh's favourite food for which he will go to extraordinary lengths to obtain.

Answer: larva

The four-stage life cycle of the bee is egg, larva, pupa, adult. The queen lays her eggs in individual cells in the honeycomb. The egg then hatches into a larva and is fed by the worker bees, after which they seal it into its cell using a resinous substance secreted by them called propolis. The larva then pupates, emerging from its cell as an adult a week later to begin its life in the colony.

The caterpillar is the larval form taken by butterflies and moths, which belong to the order Lepidoptera.

Answer: royal jelly

All the larvae in a hive are fed royal jelly by the worker bees after hatching for the first three days, but only the larvae destined to become new queens continue to be fed on it. The high levels of nutrition in royal jelly stimulate the queen's ovaries to mature fully in order for her to breed. The bees not destined to become queens are fed pollen and nectar after the first three days of their larval stage instead.

Royal jelly is, like honey, harvested from the hive. There are many commercial uses for it in the health care and cosmetics industries and studies are ongoing to evaluate further uses in the field of medicine.

Answer: mate with the queen

A beehive has one queen, who lays the eggs that are to become bees. The worker bees, which are female, are responsible for the construction and maintenance of the hive and feeding the newly-hatched larvae. The male drones' only purpose is to mate with the queen, but because of the effort involved they die after mating. Drones are not harmful to humans or animals because they do not have a stinger as they lack an ovipositor, the part of the bee's anatomy required for egg-laying which also contains the stinger.

Answer: proboscis

The bee's proboscis is effectively a long 'tongue' that it pushes into the flower to gather the nectar. The collection of nectar and pollen from flowers is done by the worker bees who, as their name suggests, work tirelessly for their colony. Nectar is rich in sugar and an important source of energy.

Bees have a symbiotic relationship with the flowers and plants that they pollinate. They, like many other insects, are excellent pollinators for flowering plants and crops and have a vital role in agriculture throughout the world. They are also very useful creatures to have in the garden. They particularly like such flowers as heather and lavender, from which some specialist varieties of honey are made.

Answer: hexagonal

Honeycomb cells are always hexagonal (six-sided) in shape. It is believed that bees construct them in this shape because the hexagon is the most space-efficient shape to create the most cells for the volume available. The cells of the honeycomb are made of beeswax by the worker bees and used to store the honey. Most importantly, they are also used for the queen to lay her eggs.

Answer: beeswax

Beeswax has uses in many fields. It is found in many barrier creams and hairdressing products and is also used in the food industry to coat cheeses to preserve them. The uses of beeswax have been known for many hundreds of years and it has its place in history too. In Roman and other ancient civilisations it was used to make wax tablets for writing on.

Answer: New Zealand

Manuka honey is produced from nectar from the flowers of the manuka bush, a wild tea tree bush native to New Zealand. It has long been used traditionally as a remedy both externally for treating burns and wounds and promoting fast healing following surgery, and also internally to treat a variety of digestive disorders and other ailments.

Not all Manuka honey is 'active' however; it is measured on a scale called the UMF scale (Unique Manuka Factor) and only honey which scores 10 or more can correctly be called 'active'. Medical and scientific research is ongoing to find out more about its properties, which it is hoped could lead to even better understanding of its health benefits and the role it can play in medicine.