PM FAMILY
storm
th
92 June 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com
Aside from warm weather
and no school, one thing you
might associate with summer
is bees. While bees can sting
you—and usually they won’t, if
you leave them alone and don’t
try to swat them—they do a lot
of good things, too. We asked
Ian Kaplan and Brock Harpur,
assistant professors of ento-
mology at Purdue University in
Indiana, to teach us a few facts
about these buzzy (and some-
times fuzzy) little creatures.
THERE ARE A LOT OF
DIFFERENT BEES.
There are more than 4,000 bee
species in the United States,
and over 20,000 in the entire
world. Some bees, such as
honeybees, live in hives. But
most bee species actually live
alone and nest in the ground,
including this neon green
halictid bee (right).HONEYBEES CAN
FLY A LONG WAY.
They can go nearly 3 miles from
their hives in search of pollen.IF YOU LIKE WATERMELON
OR ALMONDS, BE
GRATEFUL FOR BEES.
Fruits, vegetables, and nuts
start out as plants. Those plants
grow flowers, and those flowers
grow into things like water-
melons or almonds. But before
they can do that, bees have to
deliver a powdery substance
called pollen from one flower
to another. (They also eat
some of the pollen, which gives
them energy to keep flying.) Infact, farmers pay beekeepers
to bring honeybees to their
farms to help pollinate crops.
Bees are brought to California
to help grow almonds, to
Florida for citrus, and to the
Midwest for cucumbers.HONEYBEES VOTE
ON WHERE THEY’LL
LIVE. BY DANCING.
When a worker bee finds a
good location for a new hive,she’ll fly back to the colony and
dance. If other bees find other
good spots, they’ll come back
and dance, too. More bees go
out to look at the sites, and if
they like them, they return and
dance. The site that makes the
most bees dance wins.THEY DON’T
WANT TO HURT YOU.
If you leave a bee alone, most
of the time it’ll just fly away.This month, we created some
Popular Mechanics–themed
Rebus puzzles—combinations
of letters and images that create common
phrases. Try to solve these puzzles, then
check your work on page 96.THINGS
YO U MAY
NOT KNOW
ABOUT BEES
EXAMPLE:
The Th is under
the word storm.
Th-under-storm.
ANSWER:
Thunderstorm