A strong hive will have a population of about 35,000-45,000 bees in the summer, dropping to about 5,000 bees in the winter. One hive can produce 60 pounds of honey in a good season, about 20 to 30 pounds more than they need to make it through the winter. The colony does not hibernate, but stays active, clustering together to stay warm, eating their supply of honey. Left to nature, a queen bee develops from a normal worker egg, laid in a specially constructed, acorn-shaped, vertical cell. From birth she and a few others will be fed a thick, milky substance called royal jelly.
Worker bees are all female.
Drones are male bees, which wander through the hive, snacking on honey and pollen, congregating in special flight areas looking for young queens with which they can mate. On her bridal flight, a young queen will mate with 10 or 12 drones, storing their sperm inside her body for the duration of her life, and later fertilizing her own eggs. In the summer, worker bees only live for about 40 days. When a bee is born, its first job is to clean out the cell in which she was born. She then spends one to two days cleaning the cells with her saliva and keeping the brood warm.