Pesky Facts

Ants

Bed Bugs

Bees

Africanized honey bees (aka killer bees) will pursue an enemy 1/4 mile or more.
A bee has five eyes, two large compound eyes on either side of its head, and three ocelli (primitive eyes)
on top of its head to detect light intensity.
Bees use the sun as a compass. Even when the sun is obscured by clouds, bees can detect it’s position from the light in brighter patches of the sky.
Bees are capable of seeing ultraviolet light which is invisible to humans.
Bees fly an average of 13-15 mph.
A bee travels an average of 1600 round trips in order to produce one ounce of honey; up to 6 miles per trip. To produce 2 pounds of honey, bees travel a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.
Honeybees visit about 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey.
During honey production periods, a bee’s life span is about 6 weeks.
Just a single hive contains approximately 40-45,000 bees!
Honeybees are the only insects that produce food for humans.
About 8 pounds of honey is eaten by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.
Beeswax production in most hives is about 1 1/2% to 2% of the total honey yield.
The average hive temperature is 93.5 degrees.
Queens will lay almost 2000 eggs a day at a rate of 5 or 6 a minute. Between 175,000-200,000 eggs are laid per year.
The sole purpose of a drone bee is to mate with the queen bee.
Bees from the same hive visit about 225,000 flowers per day. One single bee usually visits between 50-1000 flowers a day, but can visit up to several thousand.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
A colony of bees have to fly almost fifty-five thousand miles and tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey.
A honey bee strokes its wings about 11,500 times a minute.
Bees can communicate with other bees by dancing. Their dance can alert other bees as to which direction and the distance nectar and pollen is located.
It takes 12 honeybees to make one teaspoon of honey.
In one trip, a honey bee visits about 75 flowers.
In one day, a queen bee can lay up to 1500 eggs.
In a lifetime, on average a honey bee produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.
A honey bee has four wings.

Butterflies

Centipedes

Cicadas

Cockroaches

Dragonflies

Fleas

Flies

Ladybugs

Locusts

Mosquitos

Scorpions

Spiders

Walking Sticks

Termites

While they can be pests to homeowners, termites are actually beneficial insects, ecologically speaking. Termites are actually important decomposers. Termites break down tough plant fibers, recycling dead and decaying trees into new soil. These hungry insects are vital to the health of our forests. As they tunnel, termites also aerate and improve the soil. It just so happens that we build our homes from termite food, wood.
Termites digest cellulose with the help of microorganisms in their guts. Termites feed on plants directly or on fungus growing on decaying plant material. In either case, they must be able to digest tough plant fibers, or cellulose. The termite gut is loaded with microorganisms capable of breaking down cellulose. This symbiosis benefits both the termites and the microorganisms living within their insect hosts. The termites house the bacteria and protozoa, and harvest the wood. In return, the microorganisms digest the cellulose for the termites.
Termites feed on each other’s feces. Termites aren’t born with all that bacteria in their gut. Before they can start the hard work of eating trees, termites must obtain a supply of microorganisms for their digestive tracts. They engage in a practice known as trophallaxis, or, in less scientific terms, they eat each other’s poop. Termites must also resupply themselves after they molt, so poop eating is a big part of life in the termite mound.
Termites lived 130 million years ago, and descended from a cockroach-like ancestor. Termites, cockroaches, and mantids all share a common ancestor in an insect that crawled the Earth about 300 million years ago. The fossil record’s earliest termite specimen dates back to the Cretaceous period. A termite holds the record for the oldest example of mutualism between organisms, too. A 100-million-year old termite with a ruptured abdomen was encased in amber, along with the protozoans that lived in its gut.
Termite fathers help raise their young. You won’t find deadbeat dads in the termite mound. Unlike in bee colonies, where males are short-lived and die soon after mating, the termite kings stick around. After their nuptial flight, the termite king stays with his queen, fertilizing her eggs as needed. He also shares parental duties with the queen, helping her feed their young predigested food.
Termite workers and soldiers are almost always blind. In almost all species, both the workers and soldiers in a given termite colony are blind. Since these industrious individuals spend their lives in the confines of the dark, damp nest, they have no need to develop functional eyes. Reproductive termites are the only termites that require eyesight, since they must fly to find mates and new nest sites.
When termite soldiers detect a threat, they tap warning signals to the colony. Termite soldiers form the world’s tiniest heavy metal mosh pit when danger comes to the nest. To sound the alarm, soldiers bang their heads against the gallery walls to send warning vibrations throughout the colony.
Chemical cues guide most communication in the termite colony. Termites use pheromones, special chemical scents, to talk to one another and control each other’s behavior. Termites leave scent trails to guide other workers using special glands on their chests. Each colony produces a distinct scent, identified by a chemical on their cuticles. In some species, the queen can even control the growth and role of her young by feeding her pheromone-laden poop.
New kings and queens can fly. New reproductive termites are winged, and able to fly. These young kings and queens, called alates, leave their home colony and fly out in search of a mate, often in large swarms. Each royal pair of king and queen emerges from the swarm together and finds a new place to found their own colony. They break their wings off and settle down in their new home to raise their offspring.
Termites are well-groomed. You wouldn’t think an insect that spends its time in the dirt would be so fastidious about its grooming, but termites make an effort to stay clean. Termites spend a great deal of time grooming each other. Their good hygiene is important to their survival, as it keeps parasites and harmful bacteria under control within the colony.

Wasps