Essay sample how the beehive looks like

Essay sample how the beehive looks like Bees are wonderful and extraordinary creatures that are far more complicated and intelligent than it is usually believed. Due to their close relationships with people, bees have been relatively well-researched compared to other insects. These are more than 20,000 species of bees living in different parts of this planet (Winston, 2014). Some of them are tiny and reach only 2 mm while others are quite impressive â€" up to 4 cm long. Bees are famous for making honey â€" a delicious and wholesome substance they create from pollen (Corrick, 2010). These social insects live in colonies with an intricate structure and a clear division of responsibilities. Research shows that there are soldiers, queens, breadwinners, and even babysitters in their beehives, which vividly demonstrates the complexity of their world. In the present essay, I attempt to explore what it is like in a beehive, how natural and human-made behaves differ, and how bees interact within these settings. Inside a Natural Beehive It is important to understand that different species of bees have different beehives. Naturally, describing all of them will take much time, so we will focus on the most common Western honeybees’ hives. A natural beehive is typically constructed in some hollow cavity that protects its inhabitants from the elements (Winston, 2014). It can be a hollow tree trunk, a cavity in a cliff, or even a rooftop or an attic. To build their houses, bees use the wax they produce with the help of glands located on their abdomens. They chew this wax until it gets soft enough to bond small pieces of it into one large hive (Corrick, 2010). Interestingly, bees building the hive (they are called workers) manage to maintain the favorable atmosphere to control the texture of this wax. Now that you know what is a beehive made out of, I intend to explain how it looks like inside and what functions it serves. The beehive is the kind of a honeycomb with uniquely-shaped hexagonal cells. These small constructions with a perfect form are used by bees to store honey, pollen, and nectar, as well as house larvae (Hirschmann, 2004). Since a beehive may contain up to 50,000 bees, it is critically important for these creatures to optimize this space. At this point, one needs to highlight that bees are talented mathematicians and engineers. They discovered that hexagon is an ideal shape to use their scarce resources wisely. Because bees need much honey to produce wax, they try to use as little of this substance as possible, so triangles and squares would be too “expensive” to construct (MyBeeLine, 2017). Besides, the hexagonal shape allows optimizing the use of space, which is crucial for such crowded places as hives. Inside a Honey Beehive: Human-Made Hives Human-made beehives, although being similar to the natural ones, have several peculiarities. Therefore, I would like to explain what’s it like inside a beehive made by people. Since the ancient times, people have tried to domesticate these useful insects and build houses for them, which consisted of unbaked clay and straw. However, these structures were not orderly enough, so bees had to create their own honeycombs, which were then destroyed by people to extract honey (Hive and Honey Apiary, 2017). Fortunately, modern beekeepers have developed more efficient methods of beehive construction that allow bees to live in comfortable conditions. Interestingly, while bees need only time and efforts to build their extraordinary houses, contemporary beekeepers wishing to have bees at home should possess many skills, knowledge, and materials at hand. To construct a simple beehive, one would need thick sheets of plywood, table saw, chop saw, hammer, nails, wood glue, jigsaw, and many other things (Pauli, 2016). The main feature of these constructions is that they have movable frames that facilitate the process of honey extraction. Due to this characteristic, the comb is easily left intact during the honey bee hive removal, but some beekeepers sell honey comb because is believed to have many vitamins. In general, although the external structure of the handmade beehive differs from that of the natural one, the internal setting remains almost the same as bees themselves adjust it to their needs. Interesting Facts about Bees I would also like to discuss some interesting honey bee hive facts that will tell you more about these extraordinary insects. Building such complicated hives requires much energy, so bees literally work themselves to death constructing them; some of them live no longer than six weeks (Reilly, 2013). Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that bees get used to performing a certain job and if they need to change it for some reason, their brain chemistry changes as well to respond to new requirements. Interestingly, it is also believed that the clear division of responsibilities resulted in bees having their distinct personalities and character, which is one of the reasons why people get so fascinated by these creatures (Reilly, 2013). The last thing to consider is how do honeybees communicate about the location of food resources? Research indicates that bees use hormones and special movements to interact, which work together as a unique language that humans have not yet fully unraveled. To summarize, one can see that bees are amazing insects with a complex social structure, division of responsibilities, language, and outstanding engineering skills. They are dedicated to their work and can cooperate effectively to construct uniquely-shaped hives, both in the natural and home environment. However, some things are still not fully explored about these creatures. It is not clear how do honeybees communicate about the location of food resources and how they decide what jobs they should take. Therefore, a beehive remains a mystery for humans, which is to be explored in the future.