I submitted this in January 2022 for Assignment A. I received a MERIT for this assignment and received very positive strong feedback.
Here is some of the constructive feedback I received, which also may be helpful:
-At this level it is important to select more word phrases and fewer single wo...
Please answer these questions about the following excerpt:
1. What is the topic of the article?
2. What do you think the name of the article is?
3. What issue is being addressed at the end of this article?
?
You probably know there has been a fall in the world's bee population and that this is not good news.
But, unless you are an entomologist (/ˌentəˈmɒlədʒɪst/ ‒ an insect expert), you probably don't know
that much about bees or why they matter so much to our lives. Most of us are familiar with social
bees, such as the honeybee or the bumblebee, which live in large groups, called colonies.
Worldwide, there are approximately 20,000 species of bee. Surprisingly, most of these are solitary,
i.e., they live alone or in smaller groups.
In this article we will focus on the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). The behaviour exhibited by the
honeybee is called eusociality /jʊˌsoʊ.ʃi.'æl.ə.t̬i/. This has three key characteristics:
• generational overlap - mother and adult offspring live side by side
• cooperative care of offspring
• reproductive division of labour - only certain individuals can reproduce.
Within a colony there are different classes of bee, known as 'castes.' Each caste plays distinct roles in
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the group. The European honeybee has three castes within a colony. The diet which female larvae
are fed determines which caste they will belong to.
Queen
Larvae which are fed only royal jelly become potential queen bees. Queens are the reproductive caste.
There is usually only one queen in a colony. The queen is the only female bee in a hive that is able to
reproduce. She lays around 2,000 eggs a day, each in an individual honeycomb cell. Queens normally
live for three to five years. However, not all queens survive, as newly emerged queens often kill each
other in the nest. Queens only leave the nest in order to mate or establish a new colony. When one
leaves, she takes a large group of workers with her.
Worker
Worker bees develop from larvae that are fed royal jelly only for the first few days. They are then given
nectar and pollen. Worker bees are female bees, but they do not mate and do not generally lay eggs.
Workers perform all the other duties needed to keep their colony functioning. This includes a bee’s
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Ms Casey’s English Class
, Name:
Date:
best known behaviour; collecting nectar from flowers to turn into honey. Honey is the food that the
bees live on in the winter. When they are collecting nectar, bees pollinate the plants they visit. Worker
bees can have other roles, such as making honeycomb. Young ‘nurse bees’ feed the larvae and keep
the nest clean. Worker bees live for between 6 weeks and five months.
Drone
2
Drones are male bees. Male bees are produced from unfertilised eggs and, as larvae, receive the
same diet as workers. Drones' only function is to mate with the queen, after which they die. A typical
honey bee colony will usually contain between 20,000-50,000 bees. Only about 15% of these are
drones. Come winter, remaining drones are thrown out of the colony in order to save resources.
Otherwise, the only reason drones leave the colony is to mate with a new queen.
In recent years there has been a worrying decrease in the populations of many bee species. Honeybees
are suffering from colony collapse, where large numbers of workers leave the nest and do not return.
3
Major causes of this decline are the use of pesticides , climate change, loss of habitat and loss of plant
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biodiversity .
100 crops produce up to 90% of our human diets. 70 of those crops rely on bees for pollination. This
means that a disaster for bees is a disaster for humans too. Many of the plants that animals rely on
are also pollinated by bees. Plants not only provide food, but they also perform many other essential
functions, including producing the oxygen we breathe. The death of bee populations could lead to
widespread ecological collapse.
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Ms Casey’s English Class
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