TEFL Academy - Assignment A (Text 3 Upper Intermediate)

TEFL Academy - Assignment A (Text 3 Upper Intermediate) You probably know there has been a fall in the world's bee population and that this is not good news. But, unless you are an entomologist (/ˌentəˈmɒlədʒɪst/ ‒ an insect expert), you probably don't know that much about bees or why they matter so much to our lives. Most of us are familiar with social bees, such as the honeybee or the bumblebee, which live in large groups, called colonies. Worldwide, there are approximately 20,000 species of bee. Surprisingly, most of these are solitary, i.e., they live alone or in smaller groups. In this article we will focus on the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). The behaviour exhibited by the honeybee is called eusociality /jʊˌsoʊ.ʃi.'æl.ə.ti/. This has three key characteristics: ̬ • generational overlap - mother and adult offspring live side by side • cooperative care of offspring • reproductive division of labour - only certain individuals can reproduce. Within a colony there are different classes of bee, known as 'castes.' Each caste plays distinct roles in the group. The European honeybee has three castes within a colony. The diet which female larvae 1 are fed determines which caste they will belong to. Queen Larvae which are fed only royal jelly become potential queen bees. Queens are the reproductive caste. There is usually only one queen in a colony. The queen is the only female bee in a hive that is able to reproduce. She lays around 2,000 eggs a day, each in an individual honeycomb cell. Queens normally live for three to five years. However, not all queens survive, as newly emerged queens often kill each other in the nest. Queens only leave the nest in order to mate or establish a new colony. When one leaves, she takes a large group of workers with her. © 2021 The TEFL Academy. All rights Reserved. (March 1st, 2021) 2 Worker Worker bees develop from larvae that are fed royal jelly only for the first few days. They are then given nectar and pollen. Worker bees are female bees, but they do not mate and do not generally lay eggs. Workers perform all the other duties needed to keep their colony functioning. This includes a bee’s best known behaviour; collecting nectar from flowers to turn into honey. Honey is the food that the bees live on in the winter. When they are collecting nectar, bees pollinate the plants they visit. Worker bees can have other roles, such as making honeycomb. Young ‘nurse bees’ feed the larvae and keep the nest clean. Worker bees live for between 6 weeks and five months. Drone Drones are male bees. Male bees are produced from unfertilised 2 eggs and, as larvae, receive the same diet as workers. Drones' only function is to mate with the queen, after which they die. A typical honey bee colony will usually contain between 20,000-50,000 bees. Only about 15% of these are drones. Come winter, remaining drones are thrown out of the colony in order to save resources. Otherwise, the only reason drones leave the colony is to mate with a new queen. In recent years there has been a worrying decrease in the populations of many bee species. Honeybees are suffering from colony collapse, where large numbers of workers leave the nest and do not return. Major causes of this decline are the use of pesticides 3 , climate change, loss of habitat and loss of plant biodiversity 4 .