• Question: How large (roughly) is a common honey bee?

    Asked by animelvr7 to Edd, Zara on 24 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by ambee97.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      Hey animelvr7 and ambee97 (ambee, do you like bees?)

      I had to look this up for an accurate number! Apparently your average worker bee is between 5 and 15 mm. So… about the size of a finger nail! The queen, who rules over the colony and produces the eggs, is bigger. More info here: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/honeybee/

      Some people wonder why bees are able to fly when they’re so fat! In fact we had a question about it yesterday: http://ias.im/57.2577 I asked a scientist in my department (who studies bugs!) the same question, here’s what she said:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Va-Y2kL5CI (skip to 1: 49… if you can’t get on youtube then try: http://www.zaragladman.com/IAS.wmv ) I guess there’s some things that scientists just can’t explain! 🙂

      Unfortunately the number of bees in this country is declining… and nobody is sure why! Bees are very important because they pollinate plants – without bees, there would be no plants! And of course they produce delicious honey!

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