'Honeybees flap their wings around 230 times every second when they are hovering.'

By Andrew Chapman.

Inspired by the Pythonesque bee animation on the Christian Aid Week website, surefish brings you everything you need to know about bees...

A is for antenna: bees' antennae (feelers) are made of 12 segments in females and 13 in males

B is for bumblebee: bumblebees (species Bombus) are gentle members of the bee world covered in a fuzzy hairlike substance called pile, and regularly disprove the urban myth that they shouldn't be able to fly. They uniquely have the ability to 'buzz pollinate' - the frequency of the buzz can pollinate tomatoes

C is for colony - bee colonies can have as many as 40,000 bees in them, with the population peaking in springtime

D is for drone: male bees or drones develop only from unfertilised eggs. They are larger than female worker bees and their primary role is to attempt to mate with the queen. Their population increases at swarming time and life for about 90 days.

E is for electrostatic charge: bees' fuzzy hair carries an electrostatic charge which helps pollen adhere to them

F is for flight: scientists have only recently worked out how bees fly. Honeybees flap their wings around 230 times every second when they are hovering.

G is for giving: a donation of just £57 to Christian Aid Week can buy a hive and train a beekeeper in Africa

H is for honey: this viscous fluid, sweeter than table sugar, is produced by honeybees from nectar. Its colour and flavour depend on the type of plants the nectar came from. Hives are used by beekeepers as a way of controlling bees' honey production

I is for imago: this is the name given to the adult stage of an insect's life. Workers can live for a few months; queens for as long as five years

J is for jelly: 'royal jelly' (secreted from young bees' heads) is fed to both workers and queens during the first three days of the larval stage, and queens only thereafter. This causes the larva to develop to the pupa stage more quickly, and the adult to develop sexually. Royal jelly is believed to have many benefits to humans (if they're not allergic to it)

K is for Karl von Frisch (1886-1982), the Austrian ethologist who studied bees and first worked out what their dances are all about

L is for larva: this is the legless, grub-like youthful stage in a bee's life before pupation. The larva of a bee is also known as a schadon

M is for metamorphosis: like butterflies, bees go through a pupation stage between being a larva and an adult. Queens pupate for 8 days, workers for 12 and the lazy drones doze for 14.5

N is for nectar: this sugar-rich liquid produced by plants forms the sweet ingredient of honey when processed by bees. Bees obtain it through the proboscis

O is for old wives' tales, such as: A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon; A swarm of bees in July isn't worth a fly. (Early swarms were valued in traditional English beekeeping.)

P is for pollination: bees play a vital role in pollinating flowering plants, either by direct pollen gathering (often into 'pollen baskets' on the legs of some species) or by pollen sticking to them when they feed on nectar. It is estimated that as much as a third of human food depends on pollination, largely achieved by bees.

Q is for queen: in most cases a colony only has one queen (but perhaps several rivals for the title - see 'V'). She lays between 1000 and 2000 eggs every day depending on the season, and is significantly larger than all other bees in the colony

R is for Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), Russian composer of Flight of the Bumblebee, which imitates the bee's undulating flight. He had synaesthesia, in his case manifesting as an ability to see musical keys as different colours.

S is for species: there are around 20,000 different species of bees. They live on every continent except Antarctica. The smallest bee (the dwarf bee) is about 2.1mm long. The largest is the Megachile pluto, which can be as large as 39mm.

T is for trophallaxis: this is the regurgitation of food by one animal for another, which bees use as a means of communication, indicating the quality of a food source, temperature and so on

U is for ultraviolet: bees have compound eyes which are able to see ultraviolet light - this penetrates clouds so bees can navigate even on a cloudy day

V is for virgin queen: a virgin queen is one that has not been mated by a drone. Several virgins can co-exit in a swarm (though may kill each other as rivals). They are smaller and more active than mated, laying queens. Younger virgins are sometimes called 'piping queens' from the shrill sound they make as a challenge to rivals.

W is for waggledance: a figure-of-eight 'dance' by worker bees to communicate details of a food source (a straight run indicates the direction, and the speed of dance shows how far away it is)

X is for exoskeleton: a bees' outer body is formed of yellow, golden, brown or black chitin, a very tough substance similar to cellulose

Y is for yellowjacket: the yellowjacket is a black-and-yellow wasp often mistaken for a bee, but stings repeatedly and doesn't do anything useful like making honey!

Z is for zootoxin: this is the scientific word for venom. Bee venom, injected with the sting, can cause anaphylactic shock and death in sensitive people - but it is also used in 'apitherapy' to help treat conditions such as arthritis

• Christian Aid Week 2006