Honey bee life cycle - wikipedia Honey bee life cycle The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure. Honey bee swarm pitched on a high limb Contents 1 Colony life 2 Development 3 See also 4 Sources 5 External links Colony life Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. The three types of honey bees in a hive are : queens ( egg - producers ), workers ( non-reproducing females ), and drones ( males whose main duty is to find and mate with a queen ). Honey bees hatch from eggs in three to four days. They are then fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larva pupates. Queens and drones are larger than workers, so require larger cells to develop. A colony may typically consist of tens of thousands of individuals. While some colonies live in hives provided by humans, so - called `` wild '' colonies ( although all honey bees remain wild, even when cultivated and managed by humans ) typically prefer a nest site that is clean, dry, protected from the weather, about 20 liters in volume with a 4 - to 6 - cm entrance about 3 m above the ground, and preferably facing south or south - east ( in the Northern Hemisphere ) or north or north - east ( in the Southern Hemisphere ). Development Stages of development of the drone pupae Development from egg to emerging bee varies among queens, workers, and drones. Queens emerge from their cells in 15 -- 16 days, workers in 21 days, and drones in 24 days. Only one queen is usually present in a hive. New virgin queens develop in enlarged cells through differential feeding of royal jelly by workers. When the existing queen ages or dies or the colony becomes very large, a new queen is raised by the worker bees. When the hive is too large, the old queen will take half the hive and half the reserves with her in a swarm. This occurs a few days prior to the new queen hatching. If several queens emerge they will begin piping ( a high buzzing noise ) signaling their location for the other virgin queens to come fight. Once one has eliminated the others, she will go around the hive chewing the sides of any other queen cells and stinging and killing the pupae. The queen takes one or several nuptial flights. The drones leave the hive when the queen is ready and mate, and mate in turns, dying after doing so. After mating the queen begins laying eggs. A fertile queen is able to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs. Each unfertilized egg contains a unique combination of 50 % of the queen 's genes and develops into a haploid drone. The fertilized eggs develop into either diploid workers or virgin queens if fed royal jelly. The average lifespan of a queen is three to four years ; drones usually die upon mating or are expelled from the hive before the winter ; and workers may live for a few weeks in the summer and several months in areas with an extended winter. Type Egg Larva Cell capped Pupa Average developmental period ( Days until emergence ) Start of fertility Body length Hatching weight Queen up to day 3 up to day 81⁄2 day 71⁄2 day 8 until emergence 16 days day 23 and up 18 -- 22 mm nearly 200 mg Worker up to day 3 up to day 9 day 9 day 10 until emergence ( day 11 or 12 last moult ) 21 days ( range : 18 -- 22 days ) N / A 12 -- 15 mm nearly 100 mg Drone up to day 3 up to day 91⁄2 day 10 day 10 until emergence 24 days about 38 days 15 -- 17 mm nearly 200 mg The weight progression of the worker egg, larva : Worker bee emerging from cell Days Developmental state Weight Length Food source egg 0.132 mg 1.2 mm yolk egg not listed yolk egg 0.09 mg yolk larva not listed royal jelly 5 larva 3.4 mg royal jelly 6 larva 33.3 mg royal jelly / honey and pollen ( bee bread ) 7 larva 100.1 mg honey and pollen ( bee bread ) 8 larva 134.5 mg honey and pollen ( bee bread ) 9 larva 155.2 mg honey and pollen ( bee bread ) See also Bee bole Bee colonies Winter cluster Sources Jump up ^ http://members.aol.com/queenb95/genetics.html#anchor1561346 Jump up ^ Stone, David M. Overview of Bee Biology Archived 2006 - 12 - 31 at the Wayback Machine. University of Illinois Laboratory Highschool ; web accessed Oct. 2006 Development of honeybees bee-info.com, accessed Oct 2005 Stanley E. Flanders ( 1960 ). `` Caste in the honey bee ''. Insectes Sociaux. 7 ( 1 ) : 9 -- 16. doi : 10.1007 / BF02225754. H. Rembold ( 1964 ). `` Die Kastenentstehung bei der Honigbiene, Apis mellifica L ''. Naturwissenschaften. 51 ( 3 ) : 49. doi : 10.1007 / BF00603442. Temporal Polyethism in Bees External links Life cycle information by the FAO Honey bee types and characteristics Bee castes Queen bee Worker bee Laying worker bee Drone Lifecycle Beehive Honey bee life cycle Brood Bee learning and communication Swarming Western honey bee subspecies and breeds Buckfast bee Carniolan honey bee European dark bee Italian bee Maltese honey bee Africanized bee Apis mellifera scutellata Honey bee race Cultivation Beekeeping Apiology Apiary Beehive Langstroth hive Horizontal top - bar hive Beeswax Honey Honey extraction Honey extractor Propolis Royal jelly Lists Topics in beekeeping Diseases of the honey bee Beekeeping by countries Hungary India Ireland Nepal New Zealand Ukraine United Kingdom United States Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Honey_bee_life_cycle&oldid=855097626 '' Categories : Beekeeping Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Talk Contents About Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu Edit links This page was last edited on 15 August 2018, at 22 : 44 ( UTC ). 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Question: how long does it take bee brood to hatch
Answer: three to four days