ACTIVITY SHEET 12

Honey Bee Math Questions

Exercise 1

Use the following information about European honey bees and Africanized honey bees to answer these math questions.

Maximum number of eggs laid daily by the queen: European Bees 2,500 eggs
Africanized Bees 4,000 eggs

Average number of days a worker bee needs to complete all developmental stages from egg to adult: European Bees 20 days
Africanized Bees 19 days

Avg. length of time worker bees live during the spring and summer: European Bees 42 days,
Africanized Bees 24 days

Avg. length of time worker bees live during the winter: European Bees 135 days
Africanized Bees 90 days

How long would it take for a colony of Africanized honey bees to lay 10,000 eggs?

Answer: 4,000 eggs laid the first day + 4,000 eggs laid the second day + 2,000 eggs laid in the first half of the third day = 2 1/2 days.

How long would it take for a colony of European honey bees to lay 10,000 eggs?

Answer: 2,500 laid the first day + 2,500 laid the second + 2,500 laid the third + 2,500 laid the fourth day = 4 days

What is the maximum number of eggs that one European honey bee queen can produce in a year?

Answer: 365 x 2,500 = 912,500!

What is the maximum number of eggs that one Africanized honey bee queen can produce in a year?

Answer: 365 x 4,000 = 1,460,000!

How much longer does an adult worker European honey bee live than an Africanized honey bee worker during the spring and summer?

Answer: 18 days. So, Africanized worker bees die almost three weeks earlier than the European worker bees.

How about during the winter?

Answer: 45 days. Bees live longer in the winter because they stay in the nest where they are protected from enemies and harsh conditions.

How many days does an Africanized honey bee live from egg to the end of adulthood in the summer? In the winter?

Answer: 19 + 24 = 43 days in the summer
19 + 90 = 109 days in the winter

The maximum number of worker bees in a well-managed hive is about 80,000. How many days would it take for an European honey bee queen to lay that many eggs?

Answer: 80,000 eggs/ 2,500 eggs per day = 32 days

If Africanized honey bee migrate 200 miles northward in an average year, how long will it take the AHB to migrate a. 2,750 miles? b. 3,020 miles? c. 5,114 miles?

Answer: a. 13.75 years b. 15.10 years c. 25.57 years

Exercise 2

The number of workers found in a honey bee hive can be estimated using the following information:

About one-third of the worker bee in a hive forage every day. Based on average number of flights per day by a single bee and the amount of time spent foraging, the following formula can be used to calculate the number of bees in a hive:

N = 3 x (f/0.0138)
N = number of bees in the hive
f = number of bees seen leaving the nest in one minute

If Joe observes 35 bees leaving a hive in one minute, how many bees are inside? Round off the answer to the nearest whole number.

Answer: 35/0.0138 = 2,536 bees foraging per day. This is about one-third of the hive, so 2,536 x 3 = 7,608 bees in the hive.

Note: The value 0.0138 is based on average amount of time spent foraging for an average honey bee colony on an average day. This value will actually change considerably with amount of food available, weather conditions, etc.

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