Bonus June Contest: Win Burt's Bees Goodies...

June 22 – 28 is National Pollinator Week, join us with Burt's Bees to help stop colony collapse!  Bees are responsible for 1/3 of the food that we eat so bee proactive and win yourself a Burt's Bees Radiance Kit!  I have 5 kits to give away so get hopping and do a little bee research!!

Criteria:

Visit one of the following websites and bring back two of your own bee facts and leave it as a comment in this post.  Only one entry per person, duplicates will be discarded. 

• Burt’s Bees
• The Pollinator Partnership
• Haagen-Dazs Honeybee program

Official Rules:

If you are in my family or you are in my phone book you cannot enter (sorry...but I have to be fair), also make certain you include your e-mail address with your entry so I will know how to contact you!  The contest will end at 5pm EST on this Friday June 27th.  I will draw a winner from the correct answers at random and the winner will be announced Monday June 30th.

Win Pretty!!

Photo courtesy of Discovery

Comments

[Pinkyblue]

In Anciehnt Egypt beekeepers floated their clay hives down the Nile to their irrigated fields.

While honey bees and bumble bees are social and live in colonies, the vast majority of bees are solitary in nature.

[Lydia]

Woo woo!
1. In hives hit by CCD, adult workers simply fly away and disappear, leaving a small cluster of workers and the hive’s young to fend for themselves.

2. Stressed out by cross-country truck journeys and drought, attacked by viruses and introduced parasites, or whacked out by harmful new pesticides, some researchers believe the bees’ natural defences may have simply given way.

[Andrea]

What a fun and educational contest!

1. Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) are exposed to a number of parasites. Varroa destructor, Nosema apis, and N. ceranae have particularly detrimental effects on colony productivity and survival. (Pollinator Partnership)

2. Propolis is a resin secreted by some plants that honey bees collect and deposit in the nest. Propolis has important antimicrobial value to humans, but its value to the bees is not known. (Pollinator Partnership)

[Kam A]

Birds, bees, butterflies, but also beetles, mosquitoes, and even bats transfer pollen between seed plants.

Without pollinators, humans and ecosystems cannot survive.

[Kari Follett]

Humans and ecosystems won't survive without bees, natural pollinators.

Propolis is a resin secreted by some plants that honey bees collect and deposit in the nest

[Laura]

This is great! I'm a graduate student studying CCD, and I'm grateful for any and every effort to get the word out.

1 lb. of honey = 2 million flowers and 55,000 miles

bees are responsible for $20,000,000,000 worth of production annually in the US

[John B]

Honey has been used for millenia as a topical dressing for wounds since microbes cannot live in it. It also produces hydrogen peroxide. Honey has even been used to embalm bodies such as that of Alexander the Great.

Honey bees must consume about 17-20 pounds of honey to be able to biochemically produce each pound of beeswax.

[Raha]

30% of the fruit and vegetable-producing plants need honeybee pollination to thrive.

Colony Collapse Disorder is the sudden die-off of honeybee colonies that has been occurring across the U.S. for several years now.

[Michelle Rosborough]

Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing".

It is estimated that 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.

[Kat Bryan]

Almost 80% of the world's crops require pollination.

Due to biodiversity threats such as land development, pollution, and pesticide poisoning, we are losing pollinators around the world at an alarming rate

[elaine]

i love bees! a famous chinese writer wrote a beautiful story about them and how great if we, humans, could be more like bees. my two facts:

Bees may be solitary or live in various types of communitites, the most advanced of which is the eusocial colonies.

Bees are a specialized form of wasps.

[Kristi Price]

Haagen-Dazs has created a new flavor, vanilla Honey Bee and the proceeds will go towards research for protecting the honeybee populations against colony collapse. Thank you!

[ali]

Almonds are 100% reliant on honeybees to pollinate. So every year, half of the honeybee population is moved to the central valley (CA) to pollinate 80% of the world's almond crop.

Rasberries and honeybees are love matches. Rasberries need the honeybees to pollinate and honeybees love the nector!

[applez_55@yahoo.com]

I love Burt’s Bees and I hope to get this giveaway! MY facts are:

- CCD is responsible for losses of up to 70% of the managed bee colonies in U.S. beekeeping operations.

- Aside from CCD, habitat destruction, misuse of pesticides, invasive species and global warming also contribute to harming the bees.

Thanks!

[Regina Sanders]

Honeybees account for 80% of all insect pollination. Bees collect 66 pounds of pollen per year, per hive. Wow!

Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers.

[uyen]

In order to produce quality fruit, a cherry blossom has to have 100 grains of pollen from a honeybee.

Honeybees can carry as much as 100,000 grains of pollen at once.

[Mallory D]

-Only female bees are capable of stinging. All male species of bees are incapable of stinging. I didn't know this. Go girls!

-Honey bees in north america are dying because of parasitic tracheal and Varroa mites. GROSS! Where will my Burt's Bees chapstick come from if all the bees die? Save the bees!!!

Another fun fact, my husband is terrified of bees and will abandon me anywhere if a bee comes around.

[Beth/Mom2TwoVikings]

As someone who is allergic to fragrance and most cosmetics, I *love* Burt's Bees stuff!

Almost 80% of the world's crops require pollination. And, Haagen-Dazs has created a new flavor, vanilla Honey Bee and the proceeds will go towards research for protecting the honeybee populations against colony collapse.

[Erica]

- Insect pollinators, including honey bees, pollinate products amounting to $20 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

- Pollinators, almost all of which are insects, are indispensable partners for an estimated 1 out of every 3 mouthfuls of food, spices and condiments we eat, and the beverages we drink.

Thanks!

[LA Blogger Gal]

Honey is a natural moisturizer.

Bees are the only insects who make a food that we eat.

It takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world.

I couldn't get the links you provided to work, so I got creative and looked up my own facts.

[alissa]

1. Honey bees are the only insects that produce a food consumed by humans. Honey is produced in one of the busiest yet most efficient factories in the world — a beehive.

2. Honey bees are social insects with a marked division of labor among the various bees in the hive. A colony contains one queen, 500 to 1,000 drones and about 30,000 to 60,000 workers.

thanks!!!!

[Kay T]

1. More than 80% of all cherries rely on honeybee pollination.
2. Honeybees can carry as many as 100,000 grains of pollen at once. :)

[Sarah T.]

Great contest!

Here are my 2 bee facts:

-Bees collect 66 lbs of pollen per year, per hive!

-Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers.

Bees are pretty amazing. There were far many more facts I wish I could post. I just learned a whole lot about bees! Thanks for such a great contest. Good luck to everyone. :)

[i♥makeup]

Bees can fly six to nine miles per hour loaded with pollen, and eight miles per hour when empty.

Queen bees are fed every 20 to 30 minutes during the peak of brood rearing.

Good luck to everyone!!! Awesome contest Lianne!!!

[hope]

I've read that burt's bees are the best for baby, and my baby's due this fall! :)

Here are my 2 facts:
1. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of all the foods we eat. Honey bees can carry as many as 100,000 grains of pollen at once!

2. Honey is the complex substance made when the nectar and sweet deposits from plants and trees are gathered, modified and stored in the honeycomb by honeybees.