The newly introduced bees were kept in straw hives or hollow logs and while some escaped to establish new hives, others were taken west with the settlers. The first thing to remember when you observe a honeybee is that all hives have three different types of bees. Queens are larger than the other bees in the hive and rarely leave this protected area except to mate. It is the queen honeybees job to lay eggs and produce a kind of chemical called a pheromone that causes the worker honeybees to lose interest in reproducing. The workers, in turn, collect nectar, build the comb, make honey, feed the queen and tend to the newly hatched larva.
Drones are the noisiest of the honeybee clan, producing a loud buzz as they move around.
The only function of the drone is to reproduce with the queen but since they lack stingers or food gathering body parts they remain near the hive to be fed and protected by the workers. Since the drones have little value to the hive activity except at certain times of the year they are only allowed around the hive when it is time to mate. Once the queen has mated most drones are driven from the nest to starve. The life of most queen honeybees is a busy affair, rarely lasting longer than four years. Each day the queen produces close to 2,000 eggs stopping in short intervals to be fed by the worker honeybees.