Buzzing Around with Honeybees

by Wendy Mirowski and Chenoa Rosenbaum

 

        The honeybee is a very fascinating creature.  The honeybee has jobs that benefit our lives.  Some of the jobs include pollination and honey production.  Pollination allows many fruits and vegetables to grow.  They pollinate more crops than any other insect.  Honeybees are especially known for their honey production.  Did you know that it takes the entire hive to produce a single pound of honey?  Did you also know that a single bee makes only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime?  Click here for more information like this.  What is important to know is that there are 3 types of honeybees that belong to one hive.  They are the queen bee, the worker bee, and the drone.  All are important in making a beehive survive.

 

THE LIFE CYCLE OF A HONEYBEE

 

        The life of all honeybees starts off as an egg which is the size of a comma.  All bees hatch after 3 days into a larva and is fed pollen and honey for 6 days.  It then becomes an inactive pupa for 14 days.  On the 16th day the Queen bee emerges.  On the 20th day the worker bee emerges and finally on the 24th day the Drone bee is born.  The pictures below show the different life cycles of the honeybee and what each type of bee looks like when fully developed.

egg

larvae to pupa

A fully grown Worker bee

A fully grown Drone bee

A fully grown Queen bee

JOBS OF EACH BEE

 

    The Queen bees sole job is to lay eggs.  She may lay 2,000 eggs a day and as many as 1 million in her 4 to 5 year life span.

 

  The Worker bees are only female and do most of the work needed to keep the hive going.  Workers can be pollen and nectar gatherers, protective soldiers, honey makers, hive cleaners, baby "nannies" and wax comb builders, just to name a few.  The majority of the bees in the hive are workers.

 

The Drones are male bees and their only job is to mate with the Queen.  About 100 drones live in a large colony.  Workers usually force the Drones to leave the hive in the fall because they are no longer needed and they eat too much.

 

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FREQUENTLY ASKED "BEE" QUESTIONS