All About Honey Bees

Honey bees start out as eggs laid by the queen herself. These eggs hatch into larvae which are fed by young worker bees. After being fed enough, larvae will spin a cocoon around themselves, beginning the pupae stage. The pupae then develop into adorable, fuzzy honey bees and chew themselves out of their cocoon. The life cycle from a larva to an adult worker honey bee usually takes about 21 days. 

On average, there are anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 bees in one hive. The exact number varies depending on several variables, like how large a hive is. However, this base range gives insight into how many bees even one individual beekeeper can own if the said beekeeper is efficient and dedicated to their job. The number, to put it simply, is significant. 

Honey bees get all of their resources from flowers. As a result, the life cycle of the colony follows the life cycle of flowering plants in their surrounding environment. Every spring, honey bees start to build up their work force in preparation for the bloom of spring flowers. In the summer, honey bees are are at their most active and are hard at work collecting resources. As the temperatures start to get cooler and flowers become less abundant in the fall, bees start to slow down. Honey bees survive the winter, without flowers, by eating the honey they made during the spring, summer and fall. 

Honey bee colonies only have a single queen, and every bee in the colony is her offspring. Queens are easily recognized by their large abdomens and her court of worker bees that follow her around. As the only reproductive female in the colony, a queen’s primary duty is to lay eggs. In order to maintain a large colony a honey bee queen lays on average 1500 eggs per day, making her vital to the population.

Although there can only be one queen in a colony, worker bees raise multiple queens for the best change at a strong, viable queen. Once they hatch, the queens will either fight or force each other out until only one is left.

The tasks of a worker bee change as they grow older—kind of like us. Young honey bee workers first do tasks inside the nest like take care of the queen and young larvae. Young bees also produce wax from glands on their abdomens, building all of the structures you see in the nest. How long each bee works at a certain job will change depending upon the needs of the colony. After their first few weeks of life inside the nest, workers start to fly and start to do tasks outside. The last task a honey bee worker performs is foraging. Forager bees leave the nest and collect nectar, pollen and water. Some tasks a worker bee may do throughout their lives would be forming honey combs, tending to the needs of the queen and larvae like producing royal jelly for them to eat, removing debris from the hive, defending the hive from intruders, and cooling, heating, and ventilating the hive. 

A drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee, drones do not have stingers. They are also visibly larger and stouter than the worker bees. Drones do not tend the brood, produce wax, or collect pollen or nectar. The drones' main function instead is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. The life expectancy of a drone is about 90 days, but once it mates with a virgin queen it will die.