The buzz on honey bees

While there are more than 20,000 species of bees in the world, only seven species of honey bees currently are recognized.

A swarm of honey bees can contain more than 10,000 bees and can travel in a basketball-size clump. Swarming happens in late spring or early summer if a colony becomes large enough to split into two.

While the queen bee can live for several years, worker bees live for just six weeks during the summer months.

Pollination from honey bees adds more than $15 billion in annual value to agricultural crops.

The National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, announced in May, aims to reduce honey-bee colony losses during winter to no more than 15 percent by 2025; in 2014, about 40 percent were lost.