Honey bees are an important part of our life and livelihood. So, knowing the body parts of the honey bee or its structure is worth exploring.

• The honeybee is one of the hardest working creatures on earth.
• The most studied living being on the planet after humans.
• Also called “the summit of sophisticated engineering”
• The honey bee colony is the best model of “Social societies” in terms of efficiency and cooperation.
• A colony consists of more than one hundred thousand individual members, all working together seamlessly.
• Honey bees are the world’s best flower pollinator, without which trees and plants can not survive.

A perfectly proportioned insect with large eyes, four slender wings, and a large tail with horizontal stripes. Honeybees have three body regions:

• Head
• Thorax
• Abdomen

Head:

Honeybee’s head is triangular when viewed from the front. There are two antennae Near the centre of the head. They are important sensory organs. The tiny sensory hairs found on each antenna are highly responsive to odour and touch.

Eyes:

It has two compound eyes and three simple eyes, located on the head.

large compound eyes made up of almost seven thousand tiny lenses.

In addition, honeybees have three smaller (and simpler) eyes called ocelli.

Ocelli are sensitive to light, but can not view the image.

proboscis

A long hairy tongue is used to feed liquid nectar. It works like a tiny straw. After feeding, It folds it behind her head.

Honey bees have a pair of pliers called Mandible, It is used for cutting, grasping, squeezing flowers, eating bee pollen and building wax comb.

Thorax

The thorax is the middle part of the bee, attached with three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings.

Legs that are used primarily for walking. However, the forelegs have tiny hairs designed to clean the antennae and the hind legs contain a pollen basket. once collected bee pollen are pressed into pellets.

Wings: There are two pairs of flat, thin, membranous wings. The front wings are bigger. these light & powerful wings produce around 230 beats per second.

The abdomen:

The abdomen has nine segments, which has wax glands. whereas the stinger is present at the tapered end, it measures 0.32 cm. honey bees eject venom through the stinger.

Honey bees have a barbed tip so it can enter the victim’s body easily but cannot be pulled out. As a result, the Honey bee dies after stinging the victim.

Hairs

The body is covered with very tiny hairs, including the eyes. Similarly, the fine hairs on the forelegs allow the bee to clean its antennae, while those on the hind legs enable the bee to scoop pollen from the flower.