The Idaho Honey Industry in the Community

The Buzz about Idaho Honey Bees

• Idaho produces 3,300,000 pounds of honey each year.
• Idaho has 143,000 colonies of producing honey bees.
• Nationally, we produce nearly 161,000,000 pounds of honey each year.

Fun Facts about Honey

• A honeybee has to travel over 55,000 miles and visits approximately 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
• A honeybee can fly approximately 15 miles per hour.
• Honeybees are the only insect that produce food for humans.
• Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
• Honey is the only form of sugar that does not need to be refined.
• A typical beehive makes more than 400 pounds of honey per year.
• Approximately 7-8 pounds of honey are consumed by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.
• Honeybees are a great scientific mystery because they have remained unchanged for 20 million years even though the world has changed around them.
• Honeybees will usually travel approximately 3 miles from their hive.
• When a bee finds something that will be of significance to the hive (like a new food source), it returns to its hive and it dances! This little "waggle dance" is telling all the other bees exactly where the food source is, from the direction and distance it is in relation to the hive, right down to the angle it is at in relation to the sun. Even when the bee dances for hours, he changes the direction and the amount of waggles he does per cycle in relation to the sun's movements so he is still telling the other bees exactly where the item is, even though it is a different time of day.
• A single honeybee will only produce approximately 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
• A worker bee visits between 50-100 flowers on each trip.
• A honeybee will flap its wings about 11,400 times per minute creating the "buzz" that you hear.
• Honeybees are the only bees that die after they sting.
• Honeybees are entirely herbivorous when they forage for nectar and pollen, but can cannibalize their own brood when stressed.
• Honey is a natural antibiotic; it speeds the healing process and combats infections.
• Honey never spoils.
• It would take about 1 ounce of honey to fuel a honeybee's flight around the world.
• Honeybee colonies have unique odors that members flash like ID cards at the hive's front door, so the guard bees can recognize the entering bees.
• Honeybees are responsible for approximately 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S.