This colophon was written by Michael Kalantarian and Lenny Muellner. Honeybees are highly social creatures. Workers are responsible for locating and collecting the pollen, nectar, water, and resin necessary to the hive. When a worker locates such a source, she returns to the hive and performs a beedance. It takes about ten million such worker-trips to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey.
Workers also build and maintain the hive, and feed the colony.
There is no biological difference between female bees at birth. Royal jelly is a secretion generated from the glands of young workers. Worker larvae are nourished by it during their first six days of existence, and drones eight, while the queen gets it until she is fully grown. The first thing a new queen will do upon emergence from her cell is deliver a death sting to all the other larval queens. The rest of the drones are then put out of the hive to starve.