As in the hive, so on earth

SWhen you see bees flying around, you probably don't think about how similar they are to you. And not just because of the difference in height, which is much greater than in the French pairs, but rather because of the habit of considering insects as very primitive. Well, crawling around, flying around, a creature barely a centimetre in size, with a brain the size of a square millimetre - you can't compare it to your huge and evolutionarily ever-growing computer on your shoulders. Unfortunately, we often unduly underestimate our smaller rivals, who have been on Earth since long before we came out of the trees to hunt mammoths and gather mushrooms and berries. Every year, more and more publications appear in recognised scientific journals describing the similarities, not the differences, between us and the little workers. Beekeepers Ignas and Vilius also do not shy away from comparing bees to humans when talking about bees or giving educational sessions for little ones. We should be proud, they say, to be so similar. Well, now you too can measure your similarity to these hard-working bees. After all, as they say, man is not equal to man.

As the queen says, so the bees will do

I've probably heard the saying "Happy wife - happy life". We often unwittingly cringe at such tragicomic feminist pronouncements, like something out of the cult film Married with Children, but in the world of bees, this is one of the most basic rules. Although there are up to 80 000 workers in a hive, they all obey that one queen as if they were one. The great lady of the house neither eats, grooms herself nor digs for honey - after a short Honey A month old with a few drones, she spends all her days spreading good (if you're lucky) cheer around the hive and laying eggs. Now there's a real multiparent mum! And everything depends on her majesty in the hive, just like on the mother in the family: a mean queen, mean daughters; a messy queen, no one will keep the hive clean; a slow eater, expect a lower honey harvest; and finally, if she is very pretty and colourful, her little daughters will be colourful and pretty, too. In fact, the queen teaches them good manners without spanking or other punishments - she uses her good example (or rather her special pheromones) to infect the other bees in the hive, and the mood spreads throughout the hive. Would there be a queen bee who would not want such obedient children?

                      Bee School

Bees collect honey and pollen from all kinds of meadows and fields. They never get lost, they know which plants to land on, and they have mastered the craft perfectly. But how do bees know how to do all this? It turns out that, like us, they learn in school - "bee school".  21 days after laying an egg, a young worker bee hatches. Like a white sheet of paper (young bees are really "grey"!), she's all bark. Responsible bees won't let this little bee roam the meadows on her own, so she has a lot to learn before she can leave home.

1-2 days

The bee familiarises herself with the hive and cleans her cell and other empty holes so that honey can be poured into them or new eggs can be laid.

3-13 days

Once you're settled, you can get down to more serious business. The baby bees start to take care of the next generations: feeding the new larvae, feeding and combing the Queen (the Royal Majesty can't do much by herself) and helping to feed the young drones (how pampered they are!). After a visit to the Queen, the worker bees also carry the very important pheromone she gives off around the hive to let everyone know that the Queen is alive and well and that there is no need to breed a new ruler. The young bees also remove dead bees by carrying them as far away from the hive as possible. This protects the home from dangerous diseases.

8 - 18 days

Teenage bees are trusted with more responsible jobs. They take over the nectar from the bees that carry it and pour it into the hive's eyes, store it in pollen. They also work as an air conditioner, ventilating the hive with their wings and keeping it at the right temperature and air circulation. Another important function associated with the flapping of the wings is the thickening of the nectar - the air gusts remove water from the nectar and encourage it to turn into honey.

12 - 35 days

On the 12th day of life, the bee is mature enough to start producing wax. Young queens work as builders, among other jobs appropriate to their age. They make perfect hexagonal brood boxes and enlarge the hive, as well as repair damaged brood boxes and "cover" them with larvae or honey.

18 - 21 days

This time is very important. It is the time when the bees perform their last duties before heading out into the fields - protecting the hive from intruders. This is a kind of compulsory military service for bees. They squeeze in at the entrance to the hive and keep a watchful eye out for anyone who wants to get inside. Since there are countless bees living in the hive, it would be impossible to remember their faces, so the bees distinguish each other by the smell of their hive. When bees detect an intruder, they attack it with their stinger. More than one of them is killed in the line of duty.

22 - 42 days

The last job a bee will do before it dies is to carry nectar. During her first flights, the bee looks around - making bigger and bigger circles around the hive and taking in landmarks that are important to her to avoid getting lost. In this way, she creates a veritable Google map in her imagination and always finds her way home. The longer she flies, the further the nectar collector can go. Eventually, she learns to dance and uses her belly dance to tell the other bees about the nectar-filled fields.

Although worker bees only live for about six weeks in summer, they master a wide range of tasks during this period. Would you like to go to such a bee "school"?

A bee needs a bee

A bee needs a bee - just like a person needs a person. Bees are distinguished from all other insects and even many animals by their sociality. The whole hive is like a big social community, where everyone has a role to play and cannot function without the help of others. This similarity of bees to humans is driving scientists' growing interest in these small, complex insects. It turns out that we have much more in common with these little bees than with some huge whales. This similarity may not please many people, but it makes you want to boast that you're "as industrious as a bee". Congratulations, now you can boast that you are even genetically similar. The honey bees and we great minds have similar genes responsible for social behaviour. This discovery, scientists hope, may help to investigate or even solve a number of mental health problems related to the decline and alteration of higher brain functions: there are those who believe that the mysteries of how Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, dementia, depression, and other behavioural disorders are caused, modified and cured will be solved soon. Moreover, scientists believe that bees also hold the miracle of longevity, since a queen bee can survive up to five years when she is reproductively active, while her young daughters "earn their keep" in about six weeks. So perhaps soon we will be thanking these hard-working women not only for their honey, but also for a healthier, longer and happier life.

The big heart of a small insect

In fact, bees don't have a heart as we imagine it - just a few muscular tubes that pump blood. And yet, whether by genes, pheromones or instinct, bees defend their colony with all their hearts and, in the truest sense of the word, with their lives. The little flying bee, which we usually see darting around and squatting from flower to flower, will even stand up to a huge bear if it senses a threat to its home. Meanwhile, we, the brilliant creatures, the big brains who invented electricity, the computer and the 5G Internet, sometimes manage not only to create but also to destroy. So, wouldn't it be so bad to be a bit more like bees? After all, there is so much to learn from them: diligence and care, dedication, helping our neighbours, humility, thoughtfulness and, after all, loyalty. It is not for nothing that Alexander Duma's musketeers used to say: "One for all, all for one". Well, we would add, more often than not, let it be as in the hive, so on earth.