Botany, branch of 

biology that deals with the study of plants, including their structure,

properties, and biochemical processes. Also included are plant classification and the study
of plant diseases and of interactions with the environment. The principles and findings of
botany have provided the base for such applied sciences as agriculture, horticulture,
and forestry.

Plants were of paramount importance to early humans, who depended upon them as sources
of food, shelter, clothing, medicine, ornament, tools, and magic. Today it is known that, in
addition to their practical and economic values, green plants are indispensable to all life on
Earth: through the process of photosynthesis, plants transform energy from the Sun into
the chemical energy of food, which makes all life possible. A second unique and important
capacity of green plants is the formation and release of oxygen as a by-product of
photosynthesis. The oxygen of the atmosphere, so absolutely essential to many forms of life,
represents the accumulation of over 3,500,000,000 years of photosynthesis by green plants
and algae.

Although the many steps in the process of photosynthesis have become fully understood only
in recent years, even in prehistoric times humans somehow recognized intuitively that some
important relation existed between the Sun and plants. Such recognition is suggested by the
fact that worship of the Sun was often combined with the worship of plants by early tribes and
civilizations.

Insects have segmented bodies, jointed legs, and external skeletons (exoskeletons). Insects are
distinguished from other arthropods by their body, which is divided into three major regions:
(1) the head, which bears the mouthparts, eyes, and a pair of antennae, (2) the three-
segmented thorax, which usually has three pairs of legs (hence “Hexapoda”) in adults and
usually one or two pairs of wings, and (3) the many-segmented abdomen, which contains the
digestive, excretory, and reproductive organs.

In a popular sense, “insect” usually refers to familiar pests or disease carriers, such as bedbugs,
fleas, houseflies, clothes moths, Japanese beetles, mosquitoes, and hornets, or
to conspicuous groups, such as butterflies, moths, and beetles. Many insects, however,
are beneficial from a human viewpoint; they pollinate plants, produce useful substances,
control pest insects, act as scavengers, and serve as food for other animals. Furthermore,
insects are valuable objects of study in elucidating many aspects of biology and ecology. Much
of the scientific knowledge of genetics has been gained from fruit fly experiments and of
population biology from flour beetle studies. Insects are often used in investigations of
hormonal action, nerve and sense organ function, and many other physiological processes.
Insects are also used as environmental quality indicators to assess water quality and soil
contamination and are the basis of many studies of biodiversity.
All honeybees are social insects and live together in nests or hives. The honeybee is remarkable
for the dancing movements it performs in the hive to communicate information to its fellow
bees about the location, distance, size, and quality of a particular food source in the
surrounding area.

Honeybee Sexes

There are two honeybee sexes, male and female, and two female castes. The two female castes
are known as workers, which are females that do not attain sexual maturity, and queens,
females that are larger than the workers. The males, or drones, are larger than the workers and
are present only in early summer. The workers and queens have stingers, whereas the drones
are stingless.

Queen honeybees store sperm in a structure known as the spermatheca, which allows them to
control the fertilization of their eggs. Thus queens can lay eggs that are either unfertilized or
fertilized. Unfertilized eggs develop into drones, whereas fertilized eggs develop into females,
which may be either workers or virgin queens. Eggs destined to become queens are deposited
in queen cells, which are vertical cells in the honeycomb that are larger than normal. After
hatching, the virgin queens are fed royal jelly, a substance produced by the salivary glands of
the workers. When not fed a diet consisting solely of royal jelly, virgin queens will develop into
workers. During the swarming season, in the presence of a weak queen or in the absence of a
queen, workers may lay unfertilized eggs, which give rise to drones.

Spider, (order Araneida or Araneae), any of more than 46,700 species of arachnids that differ
from insects in having eight legs rather than six and in having the body divided into two parts
rather than three. The use of silk is highly developed among spiders. Spider behaviour and
appearance are diverse.

All spiders are predators, feeding almost entirely on other arthropods, especially insects. Some
spiders are active hunters that chase and overpower their prey. These typically have a well-
developed sense of touch or sight. Other spiders instead weave silk snares, or webs, to capture
prey. Webs are instinctively constructed and effectively trap flying insects. Many spiders inject
venom into their prey to kill it quickly, whereas others first use silk wrappings to immobilize
their victims.