Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"BEES" is a plural of: bee. |
Date "BEES" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | Bees signify pleasant and profitable engagements. For an officer, it brings obedient subjects and healthful environments. To a preacher, many new members and a praying congregation. To business men, increase in trade. To parents, much pleasure from dutiful children. If one stings, loss or injury will bear upon you from a friendly source. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Literature | Bees Jupiter was nourished by bees in infancy. (See Athenian Bee, p. 72, col. 1.) Pindar is said to have been nourished by bees with honey instead of milk. The coins of Ephesus had a bee on the reverse. The Greeks consecrated bees to the moon. With the Romans a flight of bees was considered a bad omen. Appian (Civil War, book ii.) says a swarm of bees lighted on the altar and prognosticated the fatal issue of the battle of Pharsalia. The priestesses of Ceres were called bees. In Christian Art St. Ambrose is represented with a beehive, from the tradition that a swarm of bees settled on his mouth in his infancy. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Bees
Larger versionScientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera Superfamily: Apoidea Families Andrenidae
Anthophoridae
Apidae
Colletidae
Ctenoplectridae
Halictidae
Megachilidae
Melittidae
Stenotritidae
Bees are flying insects, closely related to wasps and ants. They are adapted for feeding on nectar, and play an important role in pollinating flowering plants. Bees have a long tongue that they use in order to obtain the nectar from flowers. Bees have antennae made up of thirteen segments in males and twelve in females. They have two pairs of wings the back pair being the smaller of the two. Their legs are modified so that they can gather pollen and the apex of their stomachs are modified into a stinger.
There are over 16,000 described species, and possibly around 30,000 species in total.Bees may be solitary, or may live in various sorts of communities. The most advanced of these are eusocial colonies, found among the honeybees and stingless bees. Sociality is believed to have evolved separately in different groups of bees.
Eusocial Bees
Eusocial bees live in large hives, each of which has a single queen, together with workerss and drones.
The life cycle of bumblebees begins in the spring when the queen bee rises from hibernation. At this time the queen bee is the one who does all the work because there are no worker bees to do the work yet. She searches for a place to build her nest and she builds the honeypots. She also does the foraging to collect nectar and pollen. Bumblebee colonies die off in the fall, after raising a last generation of queens, which suvive individually in found hiding spots. Interestingly bumblebee queens sometimes seek winter safety in honeybee hives, where they are sometimes found dead in the spring by beekeepers, presumably stung to death by the honeybees. It is not known whether any succed in winter survival in such an environment.
With honeybees, which survive winter as a colony, the queen begins egg laying in winter, to prepare for spring. This is probably triggered by day length. She is the only fertile female, and deposits all the eggs from which the other bees are produced. Except for her one mating flight or to establish a new colony, the queen rarely leaves the hive after the larva have become full grown bees. The queen deposits each egg in a cell prepared by the worker bees. The egg hatches into a small larva which is fed by nurse bees (worker bees who maintain the interior of the colony). After about a week (depending on species), the larva is sealed up in its cell by the nurse bees. After another week (again, depending on species), it will emerge an adult bee.
The larvae and pupae in a frame of honeycome are referred to as frames of brood and are often sold (with adhering bees) by beekeepers to other beekeepers to start new beehives.
Both workers and queens are fed royal jelly during the first three days of the larval stage. Then workers are switched to a diet of pollen and nectar or diluted honey, while those intended for queens will continue to receive royal jelly. This causes the larva to develop to the pupa stage more quickly, while being also larger and fully developed sexually. Queen breeders consider good nutrition during the larval stage to be of critical importance to the quality of the queens raised, good genetics and sufficient number of matings also being factors. During the larval and pupal stages, various parasites can attack the pupa/larva and destroy or mutate it.
Peanut-like queen brood cells
are extended outward from the broodcomb.Queens are not raised in typical horizontal brood cells of the honeycomb. They are specially constructed to be much larger, and have a vertical orientation. As the queen finishes her larval feeding, and pupates, she moves into a head downward position, from which she will later chew her way out of the cell. At pupation the workers cap or seal the cell. Just prior to emerging from their cells, young queens can often be heard "piping." This is considered likely to be a challenge to other queens for battle.
Worker bees are infertile females. Worker bees secrete the wax used to build the hive, clean and maintain the hive, raise the young, guard the hive and forage for nectar and pollen.
In honeybees, the worker bees have a modified ovipositor called a stinger with which they can sting to defend the hive, but the bee will die soon after.
Drone bees are the male bees of the colony. Drone honeybees do not forage for nectar or pollen. The primary purpose of a drone bee is to fertilize a new queen. Drones mate with the queen in flight. They die immediately after mating.
In some species, drones are suspected of playing a contributing role in the temperature regulation of the hive. Drone bees have no stinger, since a stinger is actually a modified ovipositor.
Queens live on an average about three years. The workers have but a brief existence, not three months long on an average.
Honeybee queens release pheromones to regulate hive activities, and worker bees also produce pheromones for various communications.
Solitary, communal, and quasisocial Bees
Some other bees form small colonies. For example, most species of bumblebee (Bombus terrestris, B. pratorum, et al.) live in colonies of 30-400 bees. (By contrast, an average honeybee hive at the height of summer will have 40,000 - 80,000 bees.) The queen bee is typically able to survive on her own for at least a short time (unlike queens in eusocial species who must be cared for at all times).
Other species of bee such as the Orchard Mason bee (Osmia lignaria) and the hornfaced bee (Osmia cornifrons) are solitary in that every female is fertile. There are no worker bees for these species. Solitary bees typically produce neither honey nor beeswax. They are immune from tracheal and varroa mites. (see diseases of the honeybee)
Kleptoparasitic Bees
Cuckoo bees are bumblebee look-alikes that invade bumblebee nests and lay their eggs. The bumblebees raise the young as their own. Megachilid bees also have other megachilid Coelioxys bees whose young are placed into the already provisioned nests of these solitary bees. They destroy the host larvae and eat the food.
Miscellaneous
All bees eat nectar and pollen. Bees are excellent pollinators and play an important role in agriculture.Bees are the favorite meal of Merops apiaster, a bird.
See also
- Africanized bee
- bee learning and communication
- honeybee
- The life cycle of Honeybee
- how to tell bees from wasps
External links
- Bees, Bee pollen, How Bees Make Honey & Bee facts
- Honey Bee, Carpenter bee, Bumble bee, Africanized honey bees
- Carl Hayden Bee Research Center
- Pollinator Paradise (solitary bees)
- [1] Raising honeybee queens
Taxonomy
- Bees of the World, C. D. Michener (200)
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bee."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Domesticated honeybees are kept in beehives. The bees use the hive space to raise brood and to store honey for the coming winter. A location where beehives are kept is known as an apiary.
Traditional beehives
Traditional beehives provided an enclosure for the bee colony but little more. Because there is no internal structure provided for the bees to start from, the bees fill the space in the hive with comb. The comb is often cross-attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a 'fixed-frame' hive to differentiate it from the modern 'movable-frame' hives. Harvest generally destroyed the hives, though there were some adaptations with extra top baskets which could be removed when the bees filled them with honey. These were gradually supplanted with box hives of varying dimensions, with or without frames, and finally replaced by Langstroth equipment.Honey from traditional hives was typically extracted by pressing - crushing the wax honeycomb to squeeze out the honey. Because of this harvest method, they typically provided more beeswax but far less honey than a modern hive.
Skeps and other fixed-frame hives are no longer in wide use (and are illegal in many countries) because the bees and the comb cannot be inspected for disease or parasites without destruction of the honeycomb and usually the colony.
There are three basic styles of traditional beehive; Tile hives, Skeps and Bee gums.
Tile Hives
Clay tiles were the customary homes of the bees around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Long cylinders of baked clay were used in ancient Egypt, the Middle East and to some extent in Greece and Italy. They sometimes were used singly, but more often stacked in rows to provide some shade, at least for those not on top. Keepers could smoke one end to drive the bees to the other end while they harvested honey.
Skeps
In northern and western Europe, baskets made of coils of grass or straw, called skeps, were used. In the simplest form, there is a single entrance at the bottom of the skep. There is no internal structure except what the bees build themselves.
Bee gums
In Eastern, particulary southeastern USA, sections of hollow trees were used up until the 20th century. They were called "gums" because they often were from red gum trees.Sections of the hollow trees were set upright in "bee yards" or apiaries. Sometimes sticks or crossed sticks were placed under a board cover to give an attachment for the honeycomb. As with skeps, harvest of honey from these destroyed the colony. Often the human bee "robber" would sulphur the bees, killing them all, before even opening their nest. This was done by inserting a metal container of burning sulphur into the gum, an act that modern beekeepers find abhorrant.
Modern beehives
There are two modern types of hives in common use: Langstroth hives and Top-bar or Kenya-type hives.
Langstroth hives
Named for their inventor, Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth, these hives are typified by removable frames which allow the apiarist to inspect for diseases and parasites. Movable frames also allow the beekeeper to more easily split the hive to make new colonies. Langstroth presented his design in 1860 and it has become the standard style hive for 75% of the world's beekeeping.Langstroth hives make use of the discovery of bee space, a characteristic of European honeybees which causes them to propolize small spaces (less than 1/4 inch), gluing wooden parts together and to fill larger spaces (more than about 3/8 inch) with wax comb but to hold the intermediate space open for traffic channels for the bees. His cleverly designed hive makes use of this bee space so that frames are neither glued together nor jammed up with burr comb.
Langstroth hives make use of standardized sizes of hive bodies and frames to ensure that parts are interchangable and that the frames will remain relatively easy to remove and inspect without killing too many of the bees. Langstroth hive bodies are rectangular wooden or styrofoam boxes that can be stacked to expand the usable space for the bees.
Langstroth frames are thin rectangular structures made of wood or plastic and which have a wax or plastic foundation on which the bees draw out the comb. The frames hold the beeswax honeycomb formed by the bees. Ten frames side-to-side will fill the hive body and leave exactly the right amount of bee space between each frame and between the end frames and the hive body.
Langstroth frames are often reinforced with wire which makes it possible to extract honey in centrifuges which spin the honey out of the frames. The empty frames can be returned to the beehive for use next season. Since bees are estimated to use as much food to make one pound of beeswax as they would to make eight pounds of honey, the ability to reuse comb can significantly increase honey production.
Top-Bar Hives
These hives were developed as a lower-cost alternative to the standard Langstroth hives and equipment. They are used by some devotees in the US, but are much more popular, due to their simplicity and low cost, in developing countries. Top-bar hives also have movable frames and make use of the concept of bee space.The top-bar hive gets its name because the frames of the hive only have a top bar, not sides or a bottom bar. The beekeeper does not provide a foundation (or only provides a fractional foundation) for the bees to build from. The bees build the comb so it hangs down from the top bar.
Unlike the Langstroth hive, the honey cannot be extracted by centrifuging because a top-bar frame does not have reinforced foundation or a full frame. Because the bees have to rebuild the comb after each harvest, a top-bar hive will yield more beeswax but less honey. However, like the Langstroth hive, the bees can be induced to store the honey separately from the areas where they are raising the brood so that far fewer bees are killed when harvesting from a top-bar hive than when harvesting from a skep.
See also: bees, diseases of the honeybee
External sites and References
- http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/history1.htm
- http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/kenya.htm
- http://beesource.com/plans/index.htm woodworking plans for beehives
Deseret
The beehive had been used as a symbol of industry for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as represented by the word Deseret, which is explained in the Book of Mormon as an Adamic (pre-tower of Babel) word for honeybee. The beehive (represented as a skep hive) is also the official emblem of the state of Utah.Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Beehive."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Honeybee
Larger versionScientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera Superfamily: Apoidea Family: Apidae Subfamily: Apinae Genus: Apis Binomial name Apis Mellifera The honeybee is a colonial insect that is often maintained, fed, and transported by farmers. Honeybees are a subset of bees which fall into the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita. Honeybees have been domesticated at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids.
Honeybees store honey which provides energy for flight muscles and for winter heat, and pollen which supplies protein for bee brood to grow. Through centuries of selective breeding, honeybees can produce far more honey than the colony needs. Beekeepers, also known as "apiarists", harvest the surplus honey.
Origin and distribution
Honeybees probably originated in Tropical Africa and spread from South Africa to Northern Europe and East into India and China. The first bees appear in the fossil record in deposits dating about 40 million years ago in the Eocene. At about 30 million years before present they appear to have developed social behavior and structurally are virtually identical with modern bees.
Apis mellifera, the most commonly cultivated species, is native to Europe, Asia and Africa. They were bought to the Americas with the first colonists and are now distributed world-wide.
Apis mellifera was brought to Virginia in 1622, and numerous other occasions later. Many of the crops that depend on honeybees for pollination have also been imported since colonial times. Escaped swarms (known as wild bees, but actually feral) spread rapidly as far as the Great Plains, usually preceeding the colonists. The Native Americans called the honeybee "the white man's fly." Honeybees did not naturally cross the Rockies; they were carried by ship to California in the early 1850s.
Beekeeping
Beekeepers often provide a place for the colony to live and to store honey in. There are three basic types of beehive: skeps, Langstroth hives and Top-bar hives. The type of beehive used has a significant impact on the ability to keep the colony healthy and on the amount of wax and honey that the colony can produce.Modern hives also enable beekeepers to transport bees, moving from field to field as the crop needs pollinating and allowing the beekeper to charge for the pollination services they provide.
In cold climates, some beekeepers have kept colonies alive (with varying success) by moving them indoors for winter. While this can protect the colonies from extremes of temperature and make winter care and feeding more convenient for the beekeeper, it can increase the risk of dysentery (see the Nosema section of Diseases of the honeybee) and can create an excessive buildup of carbon dioxide from the respiration of the bees. Recently inside wintering has been refined by Canadian beekeepers who build large barns just for wintering bees. Automated ventilation systems assist in the control of CO2 build-up.
Queen (The yellow dot on the thorax is added by a beekeeper to aid in finding the queen. It is not a natural feature.)
Lifecycle
Like other eusocial bees, a colony generally contains one breeding female, or "queen"; a few thousand males, or "drones"; and a large population of sterile female workers. The population of a healthy hive in mid-summer can average between 40,000 and 80,000 bees. The workers cooperate to find food and are widely believed to use a pattern of "dancing" to communicate with each other.Honeybees will sting when they perceive the hive to be threatened. A honeybee that is away from the hive foraging for nectar or pollen will rarely sting. A honeybee can sting only once. The stinger is a modified ovipositor. It has barbs which lodge in the skin. As the bee pulls away, the stinger rips loose from the bee's abdomen. The bee dies soon after. The larger drone bees have no stingers at all. Note: The queen bee has a smooth stinger and could sting multiple times but the queen does not leave the hive under normal conditions.
Products of the Honeybee
Honeycomb
With nectar and pollen in the cells
Pollination
The honeybee's primary value is as a pollinator of crops and flowers.
Honey
Honeybees are also valued for honey which is used as a sweetener in many foods. Honey is actually sweeter than table sugar and has attractive chemical properties for baking. Honey has a distinctive flavor which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners.While it is rare for any honey to be produced exclusively from one floral source, honey will take on the flavor of the dominant flower in the region. Orange blossom, tupelo, and sourwood are favored types in the US. Greece is famous for wild thyme honey and France for lavender and acacia honey.
Most commercially available honey is blended. Monofloral honeys are especially valuable on the market.
In addition to its use as a sweetener, all honey has antibacterial properties and can be used as burn and wound dressing. Manuka, a strong tasting monofloral honey from New Zealand, has been shown to have greatly increased antibacterial activity and has become widely marketed for this property.
In Europe and Turkey, honeydew is highly prized. Honeydew is unusual in that the honey is not made from the nectar of flowers but from the secretions of aphids in pine forests. Honeydew in these regions has a strong piney taste and it thought to be of medicinal value.
Beeswax
Worker bees of a certain age will secrete beeswax from a series of glands on their abdomen. They use the wax to form the walls and caps of the comb. When honey is harvested, the wax can be gathered to be used in various wax products like candles and seals.
Pollen
Bees collect pollen as a protein source necessary during brood-rearing. In certain environments, excess pollen can be collected from the hive. It is often eaten as a health supplement.
Propolis
Propolis (or bee glue) is created from resins and tree saps. Honeybees use propolis to seal cracks in the hive. Propolis is also sold for its reported health benefits.
Bee problems
- North American honeybee populations were severely depleted by mite infestations in the late 1990s.
- Crop dusting insecticides also deplete bees.
- The spread of Africanized bees across the southern United States where they pose a small danger to humans.
Other Species
There are eleven species within the genus Apis, all of which produce and store honey to some degree. There are three other kinds of honeybees that have historically been cultured for or robbed of honey by humans.
- Melipona beecheii, known as the stingless bee, is native to Central America and was cultivated by the Mayans. The bee and its culture are dying out due to deforestation, pesticides, and the labor intensivity of its honey production. This bee is in some danger of becoming extinct.
- Ten species of genera Trigona and Austroplebeia in Australia produce and store honey. Australian Aborigines have used this as a source of food. More recently, these bees (called "native bees") in Australia have been cultivated on a small, "cottage industry" scale. The most important species for this industry are Trigona carbonaria and Trigona hockingsi.
- Apis cerana, and Apis florea are small Asian honeybees of southeastern Asia which are cultured for honey in a similar fashion to A. mellifera.
- Thermal defense: When their hive is discovered by Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica), about 500 Japanese honeybees (A. cerana japonica) surround the hornet and vibrate until the temperature is raised to 47ºC (117ºF), heating the hornet to death, but still under their own lethal limit (48-50ºC).
- Apis dorsata, the giant honeybee, is native to the foothills of the Himalayas, and usually makes its colonies on high tree limbs or on cliffs. Apis dorsata is wild and very fierce, but is robbed of its honey periodically by human honey gatherers.
See also
- bee
- beehive
- beekeeping
- queen bee
- diseases of the honeybee
- how to tell bees from wasps
- Deseret
External link
- Honey Bee, Carpenter bee, Bumble bee, Africanized honey bees
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Honeybee."
Synonym: BEESSynonym: Bees & honey. (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Multitude | Verb: be numerous; Adjective: swarm with, teem with, creep with; crowd, swarm, come thick upon; outnumber, multiply; people; swarm like locusts, swarm like bees. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | You are in a beehive, pal. Didn't you know? We are all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night (All About Eve; writing credit: Joseph L. Mankiewicz) The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them -- as is my understanding (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) D'you know that bees and dogs can smell fear (Jerry Maguire; writing credit: Cameron Crowe) Well the smoke disorganizes and confuse the bees. (Jackass; writing credit: Donald Spoto; Eric Overmyer) How can you not love a British rock band consisting of four teenage bumble bees. (The Tao of Steve; writing credit: Duncan North; Greer Goodman) | |
Lyrics | And bunch of other felonies from A to Z like spellin bees (Murder Murder (Remix) *; performing artist: Eminem) But leave me the birds and the bees ("Big Yellow Taxi"; performing artist: Joni Mitchell) You got too many bees in your honey (Unskinny Bop; performing artist: Poison) The birds and the bees (Sowing The Seeds of Love; performing artist: Tears For Fears) Cause I stay in these, coop rabie bees (Firm All Stars; performing artist: The Firm) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Bees (1998) Killer Bees (1974) Bees Saal Pehle (1972) The Deadly Bees (1966) Bees Saal Baad (1962) | |
Song Titles | The Birds and The Bees (performing artist: Jewel Akens) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Differences between European and Africanized honey bees can be seen in this DNA sequencing gel being read by microbiologist Hachiro Shimanuki and geneticist Cristina Arias. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |  | Sweat bees: Small wild bees such as this one visiting a dandelion are often attracted by salty sweat on hot days. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |
 | ARS geneticist Tom Rinderer (right foreground) and beekeeping cooperator Steve Bernard, along with ARS associates Tony Stelzer and Warren Kelley (background, L-R) of the Baton Rouge laboratory, inspect colonies of Russian and other honey bees. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |  | ARS chemist Raul Rivera (left), technician Jesus Maldonado (center), and entomologist William Wilson use smoke and a specially modified hand held vacuum to collect Africanized honey bees to study the impact of parasitic mites on them. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |
 | For centuries, beekeeping has been a traditional part of Mexican agriculture and a reliable source of income in rural areas. Scientists in the United States have closely followed the arrival of Africanized honey bees and two species of parasitic mites that have created hive management problems and reduced honey production. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |  | Entomologist Suzanne Batra collects polyester bees, which release a lemony odor (pheromone) from their mouths that attracts more bees to the net. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |
 | Woodrow Wilson pokes "the charges" stick into "the lobby" hornet's nest while "Mulhall" bees fly out. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | George Arnold, FSA (Farm Security Administration) rehabilitation client, with bees. Chaffee County, Colorado. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Bird and the Bee." by Dennis Bale Commentary: "A lorikeet eats palm tree flowers while bees collect the pollen." | "Busy hour" by Thorarinn Stefansson Commentary: "Taken in a London train station as the working bees start pouring in at the end of the day." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption | Play | Caption |
 | Bees swarming. | | Swarming bees. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Abraham Lincoln | When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees. |
Francis Bacon | Impatient people are like the bees; they kill themselves in stinging others. |
Henry David Thoreau | The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams. |
James Russell Lowell | Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson | Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give. |
| The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give. | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | I saw the senators one day passing along the Quai Malaquais in mantles of violet velvet sprinkled with bees, and hats in the style of Henri IV. |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | That among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Bone marrow transplantation (a procedure in which bone marrow from a healthy donor is infused into patients who have undergone drug or radiation therapy to suppress their immune system so they will not reject the donated marrow) and injections of venom from honey bees are also being studied. (references) | |
Human Rights | Mexico | The first return occurred on August 28, when 333 persons from 63 families of the approximately 3,000 displaced members of "the Bees," a pacifist organization that sympathizes with some of the goals of the EZLN, returned to their homes in Chenalho, Chiapas. (references) |
Mexico | An additional 189 persons from 35 families returned to their homes on September 30. The Bees had been displaced from Chenalho since 1997. In June 2000, the municipal authorities of Chenalho promised to facilitate the return to the area of the group, and the August return was the first since the group's flight. (references) | |
Trade | Switzerland | Special health certificates, stamped by the competent authorities of the country of origin, are required for the import of horses, bovine animals, farm animals, certain domestic animals, bees and eggs for hatching, as well as for meat, game, seafood, beeswax and comb honey. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "BEES" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 95.66% of the time. "BEES" is used about 760 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 95.66% | 727 | 9,285 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.34% | 33 | 60,273 |
| Total | 100.00% | 760 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "BEES" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Bees | Last name | 100 | 75,098 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "BEES": a cluster of bees ♦ American foulbrood of bees ♦ birds and the bees ♦ carpenter bees ♦ colony of bees ♦ have bees in one's bonnet ♦ humming of the bees ♦ keep bees ♦ like bees round a honeypot ♦ malignant foulbrood of bees ♦ nosema disease of bees ♦ nosematosis of bees ♦ swarm like bees ♦ swarm of bees ♦ To line bees ♦ To tang bees. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "BEES": bees-wax. | |
Ending with "BEES": bumble-bees, honey-bees. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
burts bees.com | 12 |
bees.com tumble | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "BEES"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | gumëzhima e bletvë (humming of the bees). (various references) | |
Arabic | تدخل فيما لا يعنيه (have bees in one's bonnet, look down one's nose at). (various references) | |
Danish | bier, honningbier. (various references) | |
Dutch | bijen, bij (at, bee, beside, by, in, to, toward, towards, with), honingbij (bee), Apis mellifica. (various references) | |
Finnish | valkoinen ja keltainen mehiläisvaha (bees wax, E901, white and yellow), nosematoosi (nosema disease of bees, nosematosis of bees), mehiläisvaha (bees wax, beeswax, E901, white and yellow), mehiläistoukka (larva of bees), mehiläisten esikotelomätä (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), mehiläisten akarioosi (acariasis of bees, acarine disease of bees, acariosis of bees), esikotelomätä (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), E 901 (bees wax, E901, white and yellow), Amerikkalainen toukkamätä (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), akariaasi (acariasis of bees, acarine disease of bees, acariosis of bees). (various references) | |
French | apidés, abeilles. (various references) | |
German | Bienen (bee). (various references) | |
Greek | μέλισσες. (various references) | |
Hebrew | עדת דבורים (swarm of bees), דבורית (swarm of bees). (various references) | |
Hungarian | méhészkedés (beekeeping, rearing bees), méhészet (apiary, rearing bees). (various references) | |
Italian | api. (various references) | |
Manx | looan (imperfect swarm of bees), lhuan (cast, imperfect swarm of bees, premature). (various references) | |
Mohawk | kontihshehstonnis (honey bees). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eesbay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | nosemose das abelhas (nosema disease of bees, nosematosis of bees), nosemose (nosema disease of bees, nosematosis of bees), loque viscosa (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), loque maligna (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), loque americana (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood), larva de abelha (larva of bees), E901 (bees wax, E901, white and yellow), acariose interna das abelhas (acariasis of bees, acarine disease of bees, acariosis of bees), acariose das abelhas (acariasis of bees, acarine disease of bees, acariosis of bees), abelheira (swarm of bees). (various references) | |
Romanian | albinãrie (apiary). (various references) | |
Scottish | còineag (a nest of wild bees). (various references) | |
Shona | bumba renyuchi (swarm of bees). (various references) | |
Spanish | abejas. (various references) | |
Swedish | bivax,vitt och gult (bees wax, E901, white and yellow), bisvärm (swarm of bees), bisamhälle (colony of bees), bilarv (larva of bees), trakékvalster (acariasis of bees, acarine disease of bees, acariosis of bees), nosematos hos bin (nosema disease of bees, nosematosis of bees), larv (catepillar, caterpillar, grub, larva, nonsense, rubbish), E 901 (bees wax, E901, white and yellow), amerikansk yngelröta (American foul brood, American foulbrood, American foulbrood of bees, Bacillus larvae infection, malignant foulbrood, malignant foulbrood of bees, ropy foulbrood). (various references) | |
Thai | การสืบพันธุ์ของมนุษย์ (คำเลี่ยงในการพูดถึงเรื่องเพศสัมพันธ์) (birds and the bees). (various references) | |
Turkish | oğul (a cluster of bees, boy, cadet, cion, cluster, descendant, junior, son, swarm, swarm of bees), cinsel konular (birds and the bees). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | віск (bees-wax, putty, wax), натирати воском (bees-wax). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | 1 Samuel Chapter 14, Verse 25 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Kai pasa h gh hrista kai iaar drumoV hn melisswnoV kata proswpon tou agrou |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Omneque terrae vulgus venit in saltum in quo erat mel super faciem agri |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | And al the puple eete no breed. And alle the comouns of the loond camen into a wast wody place, in the which was hony on the face of the feeld. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | And there was honey on the face of the field, and all the people came to the honey, the bees having gone from it; |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | 1 Samuel Chapter 14, Verse 25 |
| Cebuano | Ug ang tibook nga katawohan nanghiabut na sa lasang, ug may dugos didto sa yuta. |
| Croatian | Ali je ondje bilo medenoga saæa na površini zemlje. |
| Danish | Der fandtes nogle Bikager på Marken, |
| Dutch | En het ganse volk kwam in een woud; en daar was honig op het veld. |
| Finnish | Ja kun he kaikki tulivat metsään, oli maassa hunajata. |
| German | Und das ganze Land kam in den Wald. Es war aber Honig auf dem Erdboden. |
| Haitian Creole | Pèp la rive nan yon gwo rakbwa kote ki te gen anpil siwo myèl. |
| Hungarian | És az egész föld népe eljuta az erdõbe, hol méz vala a föld szinén. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Kemudian sampailah mereka semua di sebuah hutan dan menemukan banyak sekali madu, |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Maka segala orang isi negeri itupun masuklah ke dalam hutan, maka pada padang di sana adalah air lebah. |
| Korean | 그 들 이 다 수 풀 에 들 어 간 즉 땅 에 꿀 이 있 더 라 |
| Maori | Na ko te haerenga o nga tangata katoa o te whenua ki tetahi ngahere; a he honi kei runga i te whenua. |
| Norwegian | Så kom alt folket inn i skogen; der var det honning på marken, |
| Portuguese | Mas todo o povo chegou a um bosque, onde havia mel à flor da terra. |
| Rumanian | Tot poporul ajunsese kntr`o pqdure, unde se gqsea miere pe faya pqmkntului. |
| Swedish | Och när de allasammans kommo in i skogsbygden, låg honung på marken. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "BEES": beestings, beeswax, beeswaxes, beeswing, beeswings. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "BEES": baubees, bawbees, beebees, bribees, bumblebees, freebees, frisbees, honeybees, tullibees. (additional references) | |
Words containing "BEES": hartebeest, hartebeests, wildebeest, wildebeests. (additional references) | |
| |
"BEES" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: baec, beas, bease, beaz, bebs, bedes, beeb, beec, beeds, beeem, beegs, beels, Beelsby, beem, beens, Beese, beeso, beest, beesy, beev, beew, beey, beez, beeze, Beezy, beisa, bems, benes, benez, Beres, bers, bes, besm, besp, bess, beue, Bevs, Bewes, bexe, beys, bez, blees, Bnes, Boes, boez, brees, bses, Buess, Byeee, ebas, ebec, ebens, ebex, ebos, Ebus, ees, Zbys. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "BEES" (pronounced bē"z) |
| 2 | -ē" z | absentees, abductees, adoptees, agrees, amputees, appease, appointees, brees, breeze, Cees, cheese, chemise, conferees, decrees, Dees, degrees, deportees, designees, detainees, devotees, disagrees, disease, displease, draftees, drees, ease, enlistees, enrollees, escapees, expertise, fees, fleas, flees, foresees, franchisees, frees, freeze, frieze, Geez, gies, guarantees, guaranties, honorees, inductees, internees, interviewees, Jeez, journalese, keas, keys, knees, Leas, Lees, lessees, licensees, nominees, overseas, parolees, pawnees, peas, Pease, pleas, please, Rees, referees, Reis, retirees, returnees, rupees, seas, sees, seize, siamese, skees, skis, sleaze, sneeze, sprees, squeeze, teas, tease, tees, these, threes, trainees, trapeze, trees, trustees, underseas, unease, vees, wheeze. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-e-e-s" | |
-1 letter: bee, see. | |
-2 letters: be, es. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-e-e-s" | |
+1 letter: beefs, beeps, beers, beets, benes, beset, brees, hebes, obese. | |
+2 letters: abeles, bedels, bedews, beeves, begets, behest, beiges, belies, belles, bemuse, bennes, berets, bermes, beseem, besets, beside, bested, betels, betise, bevels, bevies, bezels, bleeds, bleeps, bredes, breeds, breeks, breves, celebs, debase, debyes, dweebs, ebbets, embeds, embers, glebes, grebes, ibexes, jebels, lebens, plebes, rebbes, rebecs, rebels, seabed, thebes, webers, xebecs, zebecs. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Familiar 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Quotations: Non-fiction | 13. Usage Frequency 14. Names: Frequency 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet | 17. Translations: Modern 18. Bible Trace 19. Derivations 20. Rhymes | 21. Anagrams 22. Bibliography |
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