Here is a concise summary of the text:
**Title:** The Importance of Bees and the Unique Role of the Queen Bee
**Key Points:**
1. **Bees' Importance**: Bees are crucial for pollination, with a hive containing 50,000-80,000 honey bees.
2. **Stinging**: Bees sting when threatened; only female bees can sting, with worker bees having jagged stings that get stuck in skin, causing pain.
3. **Queen Bee**:
* Rarely leaves the hive or stings (only when fighting a rival).
* Has a smoother sting, causing less pain, but can sting multiple times.
* Primary role is laying eggs (up to 2,000/day).
4. **Becoming a Queen**: Queens are created when larvae are fed royal jelly, triggering a special development phase; the first queen to emerge will kill competitors.
5. **Hive Roles**:
* Worker Bees (females): Perform all tasks except mating.
* Male Bees (drones): Only mate with the queen.
6. **Worker Bee Life Stages**:
1. Cleaning (3 weeks after birth)
2. Feeding other bees (1 week)
3. Building/guarding (1 week)
4. Foraging (final 10 days, then they leave the hive)
7. **Species Longevity**: Despite individual bees' short lifespan, their social model has ensured the species' survival for over 130 million years.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text, each with a number and in short sentences, excluding opinions:
**Bee Stings and Behavior**
1. Bees sting only when they feel threatened.
2. A hive can contain between 50,000 and 80,000 honey bees.
3. Honey bees release pheromones when they sting, which can agitate other nearby bees.
4. Only female bees can sting; males (drones) cannot.
**Queen Bees**
5. Queen bees are larger than ordinary bees, approximately 2 centimeters in length.
6. Queen bees have a smoother stinger that doesn't get stuck in skin, causing less pain.
7. Queen bees can sting multiple times without harm to themselves.
8. Queen bees rarely leave the hive and their main job is to lay eggs.
9. Queen bees can live up to five years, while summer-born worker bees live about six weeks.
**Royal Jelly and Queen Development**
10. Royal jelly is required to develop a new queen bee.
11. Royal jelly contains vitamins, proteins, hormones, and sugar.
12. Nurse bees produce royal jelly in their heads to feed to newly hatched larvae.
13. After three days of royal jelly, selected larvae continue to receive it, developing into queens.
**Colony Dynamics**
14. Worker bees (females) perform all tasks except mating with the queen.
15. Males (drones) have only one job: to mate with the queen.
16. Worker bees go through four life stages: cell cleaning, feeding other bees, building/guarding, and foraging.
17. The foraging stage, lasting about 10 days, is the most dangerous part of a worker bee's life.
18. Bees leave scent trails on flowers to communicate with other bees.
19. Undertaker bees are responsible for removing dead bees from the hive.
**Evolution and Longevity**
20. Bees have existed for over 130 million years.