B E E S
Some insects live in groups or colonies. Ants live like this and so do some wasps. Insects that live and work together are called social insects and one of the best known social insects is the honey bee. There are many different kinds of bees. Honey bees have been kept by the man for hundreds of years to get honey. These insects are also kept in a specially made wooden box called a hive.
In a hive of bees, there are a queen, some drones and thousands of workers. The queen is there only to lay eggs and do nothing else. At certain times, she may lay up to fifteen hundreds eggs everyday!. The drones are male bees and they do not work. All the tasks of the hive are done by the worker bees. They look after the queen and each new larva that hatches out from the eggs. They make layers of six sided compartments called cells. The eggs are laid and food is stored in these cells. They keep the hive cool in summer by fanning with their wings. They guard the hive so that no robber bees can get in. They also gather food. In summer there is so much work for the bees to do that they only live for four to five weeks. The bees that start their lives in the autumn do not have to work so hard, and usually live right through the winter.
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Have you ever watched bees gathering food? They fly from flower to flower collecting nectar, which is a sweet and sugary fluid. They also collect pollen. Both nectar and pollen are used for food, but is the nectar that the bee turn into honey. Some bees collect nectar from sunflowers, others go to buttercups. The bee suck the nectar into a special honey stomach. The pollen is picked up on the hair of the body as it scrambles into the flower. It is then scraped off into a pollen basket on the outside of each back leg.
On reaching back in the hive, they store food in the cells. Some food is consumed at once. The rest is stored for the winter when there are no more flowers. To collect all the food that is needed, the bees fly around looking for new bunches of flowers. If they find some, they return to the hive and tell the other worker bees where the new supply of food can be found. They 'dance' to tell the others if food is found. The dances are special movements that the bee make. From these movements, the other bees are able to learn how long it takes to fly from the hive to those flowers.
When the eggs that the queen has laid in the cells hatch, each larva is fed on special brood food, sometimes called royal jelly made by the worker bees. If a new queen is wanted, a larva is fed all the time on this brood food. After thee days, the others stop having brood food and are given pollen and honey instead. They grow into worker bees. When a new queen comes out of the cell she flies off one day and then returns to the hive to start egg laying. At the end of the summer, the drones that are still in the hive are turned out to die in the cold.
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EXERCISES
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Ans: Insects that live and work together are called social insects.
ii) Which is one of the best known social insects?
Ans: One of the best known social insect is the honey bee.
iii) Why are bees also known as hive bees?
Ans: These bees live happily in a specially made wooden box called a hive, so they are sometimes known as hive bees.
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Ans: The drones are male bees and they do not work.
v) What do bee workers do?
Ans: Bee workers do all the tasks of the hive.
i) How many compartments does a cell have in which eggs are laid?
Ans: A cell has six sided compartments in which the eggs are laid.
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Ans: Sweet and nice juice collected from flowers is called nectar. Bees fly from flower to flower to collect nectar.
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iii) Describe the process by which bees gather food.
Ans: Bees collect food from different flowers. Both nectar and pollen are used for food.
iv) Why and when do the bees dance?
Ans: When the bees come to know the sources of nectar and pollens they come back to their hive and begin to dance. Their dance tells the workers the exact location of the new source of food.
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Ans: When the eggs hatch larvas are produced.
Q:2 Fill in the blanks with a suitable word by choosing one from those given in brackets.
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ii) Bees collect food from _______(flowers, stones)
iii) The drones are __________ bees. (male, female)
iv) Eggs are laid in ________ sided compartment (seven, six, five)
v) There are _________ seasons in a year. (four, five)
vi) Sunflowers, roses and lilies are names of _____ (vegetables, flowers)
vii) Ants and wasps are ___ (animals, insects)
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Q:3 Write 'T' for true statement and 'F' for false statement.
i) Bees do not live in group. ........ F
ii) Honey bees live in hives. ....... T
iii) The queen can lay upto fifty thousand eggs in a day. ......... F
iv) The food is not stored in cells. ......... F
v) Bees collect nectar from the flowers. ......... T
vi) The worker bees sit idle. .......... F
Q:4 Use the following words in sentences of your own.
Colonies, wooden, compartment, hatch, stomach
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Social insects live in colonies.
Wooden
This wooden hose looks beautiful.
Compartment
There is no room in this compartment.
Hatch
The eggs hatched and the chicks came out of them.
Stomach
He feels pain in his stomach.
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