It’s that time of year when you notice bees out and about. These bees can be a nuisance to us but we fail to appreciate them for their hard work.

The third Saturday in August celebrates National Honey Bee Day. Did you know bees have to travel about 55,000 miles to produce 1 pound of honey? To make this pound of honey, bees need to gather nectar from about 2 million flowers. They can do this by flapping their tiny wings around 11,400 times per minute, which produces their distinctive humming sound. Normally, a bee is only able to produce about ½ teaspoon of honey in its lifetime which for a worker bee is only 1-5 months. The queen bee can live 2-5 years, which is by far the longest lifespan of any bee within the colony.

Honey bees have been producing honey for over 100 million years; despite this, National Honey Bee Day was only established in 2009 by Thomas J. Vilsek, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. The reason behind this day was to promote education and awareness of bees and also the promotion of honey sales.

So, next time you hear one of those pesky bees buzzing around, remember how hard that bee is working to produce honey and to pollinate the many f