These special larvae develop into queens. Therefore, the only difference between workers and queens is the quality and quantity of the larval diet. There is usually only one queen per colony. Drones - Male bees. A colony may have 0 to 500 drones during spring and summer.
Drones fly from the hive and mate in the air with queens from other colonies.
Drones are kicked out of the hive during the winter months. 2 Queen lays an egg. The queen lays all her eggs in hexagonal beeswax cells built by workers. Development time of honey bee castes. Unlike colonies of social wasps and bumble bees, honey bee colonies live year after year.