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Insects and Spiders · entry 2 of 52
A single honeybee may visit hundreds of flowers during one foraging trip.
The longer version
Flying from flower to flower is how one gathering trip adds up so quickly. Each blossom usually holds only a small amount of sugary liquid and some grains of pollen, so a worker must land repeatedly to fill the storage organs in its body before turning home.
Along the way, pollen brushes onto the fine branched hairs covering its body and rubs off on the next flower, making the routine useful for plant reproduction. Bees also tend to favour one kind of blossom during a trip, which improves transfer efficiency. The constant movement explains why a single outing can keep a forager busy for hours.
Where this entry sits
This collection gathers small wonders from the world of ants, bees, butterflies, beetles, and spiders. Expect surprising details about swarms, silk, and metamorphosis, plus the strange everyday abilities of creatures small enough to fit on a fingertip. The full list sits on the Insects and Spiders page, where every entry is listed in order.
More From Insects and Spiders
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Read 4A caterpillar sheds its skin several times before it becomes a chrysalis.
Read 5Spiders spin silk from glands in their abdomen, not from their mouth.
Read 6Most spiders have eight eyes, though some species have six or fewer.
Read 7Beetles make up the largest insect order, with hundreds of thousands of named species.
Read 8The wings of a housefly beat hundreds of times each second during flight.
Read 9Male crickets chirp by rubbing their wings together rather than their legs.
Read 10A honeybee colony usually has one queen, many workers, and some drones.
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