Some facts about the honeybee:

• First managed by humans around 5,000 B.C.E. for honey
• Colonies were housed in clay vessels or baskets
• The honeybee is highly social
• A division of labor is strongly developed
• There are three castes:
  • Queen - female reproductive, lays all the eggs in the colony
  • Drone - reproductive male
  • Worker - sterile female, does all foraging, larval rearing and colony maintenance
    
• Long-tongued: enables them to visit a wide variety of flowers
• Mouthparts form a "straw" which allows them to suck up nectar
• Wax is secreted from their bodies and used to construct comb
• Wax comb is used to store honey, pollen and house larvae and pupae
• Workers readily defend their colony
• Sting is barbed to ensure maximum envenomation (unique among insects)
• Stinger and venom sack is pulled from the body of the bee which leads to the bees death
• Communicate using a dance language inside the hive; tells the direction, distance and quality of food
• Responsible for 80% of all insect pollination in the U.S.
• Worth approximately $14.6 billion to U.S. agriculture

 Africanized ("killer") bees

• have killed 6 people in the U.S. so far
• are identical in appearance to European Honeybees
• sting has same strength as European honeybees
• responds more quickly and in greater numbers to percieved threats to the colony

 What to do if attacked:

  Other recent threats to the honeybee industry

For more information on honeybees:

• http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/
• http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jlks/bee.html#archive
• http://www.nhb.org/