2023Nature Protection - Bees - First Day Cover

The honey bee (Apis mellifera) has lived on Earth for more than 80 million years. It is native to Africa and is one of the most useful insects in the world. In general, when we talk about bees or honey bees, we mean the species most commonly found in Europe, the western bee (Apis mellifera), which is kept by beekeepers all over the world. There are several different breeds of honey bee, the economically important ones found in our country are of the genus Carniolan bee (Apis mellifera carnica) that originally come from north-western Slovenia. The individual breeds differ from each other in their appearance, behaviour, hardiness and economic benefits. The honey bee is a hymenopterous insect that forms communities called colonies. The term bee colony describes a community with a single bee mother, also called the queen, worker bees (about 40,000 to 60,000 in the summer) and several hundred to thousands of drones during the breeding season. One community can contain from about 40,000 to 70,000 individuals. The body of a bee is made up of the head, thorax and abdomen and is covered with hair. The queen lives for 2 to 6 years, the workers for 1 to 4 months (only a few weeks in the summer) and the drones for only, approximately, 30 to 60 days.