Honey Bee Workers, Drones, and Queens Honey Bee Workers, Drones, and Queens Honey Bee Workers, Drones, and Queens Roles Within the Honey Bee Colony Workers attending to the queen honey bee. Getty Images/Collection:PhotolibraryMax /C. Allan Morgan By Debbie Hadley Updated September 23, 2015. Honey bees enlist a caste system to accomplish the tasks that ensure survival of the colony. Each member of the community fulfills a need that serves the group. Tens of thousands of worker bees, all females, assume responsibility for feeding, cleaning, nursing, and defending the group. Male drones live only to mate with the queen, who is the only fertile female in the colony. The queen need not lift a wing, as workers tend to her every need. The Queen: Don't get the idea the queen is lazy, though. A newly hatched queen begins her life in a duel to the death with any other queens present in the colony, and must destroy potential rivals that have not yet hatched. Once she accomplishes this, she takes her virgin mating flight. Throughout her life, she lays eggs and secretes a pheromone that keeps all other females in the colony sterile.

Drones: The drone's anatomical structure proves its limited role in the colony. Drones lack stingers, so they cannot help defend the hive. continue reading below our video 4 Tips for Improving Test Performance Without structures for collecting pollen or nectar, they cannot contribute to feeding the community. Upon mating, its only reason for existence, the drone dies. In the fall, worker bees prevent drones from entering the hive, effectively starving them to death. Workers: Female worker bees accomplish every chore unrelated to reproduction. In their first days, workers tend to the queen. For the remainder of their short lives, workers keep busy - thus the expression "busy bees." They build the comb in which honey is stored and eggs are laid. Workers collect pollen and nectar, and evaporate the nectar to make honey for times when food is scarce. They tend to the queen, the young drones, and the larvae. When threatened, the workers defend the colony. New research suggests the workers also make the collective decision to move the colony , or swarm. Chapter 1 BEES: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COLONY The first step in studying bees is to learn as much as possible about their biology.

This information about their life and needs is required to manage and maintain the colonies properly. It is even more important when you must diagnose an ailing colony that may have lost its queen or become infected with disease. Kinds of Adult Bees The honey bee colony includes both male and female bees for only a portion of the year. The males, or drone bees, are normally present in spring and summer. Female bees, the queen and her workers, are present all year. Naturally, all three types of individuals are important to the colony and to the survival of the species. The beginning beekeeper needs to learn to recognize these different bees as quickly as possible. They are shown together in Figure 1. Close observation, repeated at frequent intervals, will make it easy to distinguish the two sexes and the two female castes. (All specialized terms are defined in the Glossary.) The workers are the smallest bees in the colony. Their abdomens are pointed at the end but may vary somewhat in length. The abdomens of workers with full honey stomachs are longer than those of workers carrying little food, but they are always shorter than the queen's abdomen.

Before the young queen mates, her body is similar in appearance to a worker's, except that its overall size is noticeably larger. As she begins to lay, the queen's abdomen becomes greatly elongated, so much that her wings look short. They cover only about two-thirds of her abdomen. In contrast, the wings of both workers and drones nearly reach the tip of the abdomen when folded. Queens' and workers' large, compound eyes are separated by areas of hair in which their three, small, simple eyes, called ocelli, are located. Drones have large, stout bodies with blunt abdomens. A conspicuous brush of hairs is visible at the end of their abdomens. This character is not present on the female castes. The drones' large, compound eyes can be easily distinguished from those of the other bees because they are the largest and they meet on top of the head. The drones' ocelli are located below the compound eyes, close to the antennae. The three kinds of adult honey bees. The worker bee is at the top left, the drone is below the worker, and a marked queen is the large bee at the right. (Fig.1) The Workers The worker bees (Fig.

2) are the largest group of bees in the hive up to 60,000 in midsummer. They develop in the smallest cells in the comb of the colony from fertilized eggs laid by a queen. They are imperfect females and under normal hive conditions they do not lay eggs. The young, grublike or wormlike larvae receive large quantities of food that surround and support them for the first few days after they hatch from the egg. As the larvae grow, they consume all the excess food. The nurse bees then feed them small quantities of food at frequent intervals. About 5 days after hatching, the larva is sealed in its cell where it spins a partial cocoon and begins the body changes, or metamorphosis, that produce the pupa and finally the adult worker bee. The cell capping on worker cells is flat or only slightly convex. There are about 55 worker cells to the square inch, including both sides of the comb. A worker bee (Fig. 2) From 19 to 22 days after the egg was laid, depending on conditions in the hive, an adult bee emerges from the comb by chewing a hole in the capping of her cell.

She is soft and downy, and is not yet capable of making wax, stinging, or flying. She will spend more than half her life doing hive duties in a rather flexible sequence that is governed by the colony's needs. Usually this begins with cleaning cells and feeding and caring for the brood (the immature stages of bees) (Fig. 3). Other typical duties include building comb, removing debris, and guarding the entrance (Fig. 4). Although we think of bees as being very industrious, the workers spend many hours patrolling the hive and sitting idle on combs. The patrolling probably serves to inform bees of the needs of the colony and also produces heat to maintain the warmth of the brood nest where the young bees are reared. Young workers begin to fly from the hive when they are 10 to 20 (lays old, and in some cases even earlier. At first they take short flights in front of the colony, often on warm afternoons. These flights acquaint the bee with the appearance of the hive and its immediate vicinity. The term "play flights" has been given to this activity because the bees bob and weave in the air while facing the hive. Workers forage first for either pollen or nectar.

They may change from one to the other but usually collect pollen first and nectar later. The nectar collectors may also collect water when the colony needs it, and a few bees collect plant resins called propolis or bee glue. Workers live 4 to 6 weeks during the active season. Those reared in the fall may live as long as 6 months, allowing a new generation to develop in the spring before they die. These differences in length of life have not been completely explained, but they are probably brought about by changes in glandular activity, diet, and the amount of brood reared by the colony in the fall. A young worker bee feeding a larva. (Fig. 3) Worker bees on guard at the hive entrance. (Fig. 4) The colony uses large quantities of honey and pollen as food, but the bees usually store more honey than the colony needs. Only this surplus production should be removed by the beekeeper (see page 79). The young worker bee needs pollen to develop the glands that are used to make the secretions fed to developing larvae and to the queen. Adult bees can survive without pollen, but they are soon unable to rear young bees.

Wax is produced by glands on the underside of the abdomen of house bees. It is secreted only when the colony is obtaining considerable quantities of nectar or is being fed sugar or honey by the beekeeper. The Drones The male bees, or drones, appear in the colony in late spring (Fig. 5). No certain number is produced and colonies may have only a few hundred or as many as several thousand. They help to produce heat in the colony and may be of value by affecting the "morale" of the colony or in other ways that are still not known. However, since they consume food and take up space, their numbers should be kept at a minimum. Colonies allowed to build combs without foundation or to repair dam- aged combs will produce large numbers of drone cells as well as worker cells. You can reduce drone production by using full sheets of comb foundation and by culling combs with large areas of drone cells. Bees: The Individual and the Colony The drone. Note the blunt abdomen and the eyes taht meet on the top of the head. (Fig. 5) The drones are produced from unfertilized eggs usually laid by a queen but occasionally by workers whose ovaries have developed (laying workers).

A normal queen lays drone eggs in cells that are larger than worker cells. When sealed, the cells have distinct, rounded cappings (Fig. 6). Both laying workers and queens unable to lay fertilized eggs produce drones in worker- sized cells. Those that complete their development are normal, small drones, but many of them do not survive to maturity in the smaller cells. Drones require from 24 to 25 days to develop from egg to adult. Another type of drone is produced in some honey bee colonies. However, they are never seen as adults because the worker bees remove them from the comb a day or two after the larvae hatch. These drone larvae hatch from fertilized eggs that have a matching pair of hereditary factors called sex alleles. The eggs are laid in worker-sized cells by a queen that mated with one or more drones having a sex allele the same as one of hers. Eggs with a single allele are unfertilized and usually laid by the queen in large cells of the comb where they produce normal drones. Fertilized eggs with two different sex alleles produce normal worker bees.

The production and loss of these drones, called diploid drones, is detrimental to a colony because as many as half of the fertilized eggs do not produce worker bees. The colony fails to develop the large population needed for honey production. A spotty brood pattern when no disease is present may indicate this problem, and the colony should be requeened. Young drones are fed by workers for the first few days of their lives. After that time they help themselves to the stored honey and fly in search of queens on warm afternoons. Drones are attracted to certain small areas, at a considerable distance from their hives, where they congregate and patrol while flying 30 to 50 feet above the ground. It is here that they usually meet and mate with queen bees. When flowers cease to provide nectar for the colony, either in the fall or, more rarely, at any time of the year, the workers no longer tolerate the drones. Workers remove developing drones from the comb and begin to harass the adults, the oldest ones first. The drones are rarely stung but they are pushed and pulled so much that they have difficulty eating. Ultimately, all the drones in a queenright colony are driven from the hive and die.

The Italian race tolerates them longer than the Caucasians, and queenless colonies allow them to stay for an indefinite period. Worker bees on sealed brood. The worker cells are at the top left and the drone cels at the bottom right. (Fig. 6) The Queen The queen (Fig. 7) is responsible for all the qualities of her colony. She mates with several drones and stores their spermatozoa within her body. These drones die, leaving the queen as their representative within the colony. The workers share the queen's motherly duties by caring for the young, but her genetic, or hereditary, makeup and that of the drones she has mated with determine the size and temper of the colony, the color of the workers and drones, disease resistance, honey-producing ability, and all the other characteristics of the colony. Queens develop from fertilized eggs or from young female (worker) larvae not over 3 days old. In a colony that wants to swarm or needs to replace a failing queen, the old queen lays several eggs destined to become new queens in special cells, or cell cups, that hang vertically on the comb (Fig. 8). Worker and drone cells lie on a horizontal plane.

When an old queen is lost, killed or removed from a colony, the bees can produce a new queen from any worker larva not over 3 days old. To do this they modify the worker cell containing such a larva so that the queen develops in a vertical cell similar to those built from queen cell cups. Several queens usually are started at the same time. Regardless of the method by which she begins her development, the young queen larva develops much like a worker but does so more completely and more quickly, in only 15 to 17 days. She receives glandular secretions, called royal jelly, in excess quantity throughout her life. Queen larvae float in a bed of food. This greater quantity of food, together with other differences in quality and content, brings about the differences between worker and queen bees, and produces a queen that is a per feet female with a complete reproductive system. When she emerges from her cell, the young queen is practically ignored by the workers. Very quickly, however, they are attracted to her and begin to feed and groom her. They even bite and chase her within the hive during the first few days. After about a week the queen is agile and physically ready for her mating flight.

She leaves by herself, usually between noon and 4 p.m., and probably flies a considerable distance from the hive. It seems likely that queens visit drone-congregation areas because they mate with many drones in a short period. The average queen makes more than one mating flight and mates with as many as 10 different drones. This system of mating reduces inbreeding and thereby increases the efficiency of the colony. The mated queen begins to lay a few days after completion of her flights. Her egg production increases rapidly to as many as 2,000 eggs per day. This high output, equal to the queen's own weight, is made possible by the high- protein diet of glandular secretions provided in large quantity by the worker attendants. Queens lay eggs in greatest numbers in the spring and early summer. They gradually cease to lay in the fall and do not begin again until January or February. Winter brood rearing is normal and takes place in most colonies that have adequate stores of honey and pollen and a good population of worker bees. Queens may live as long as 5 years but are most productive during the first 2 years.

A common cause of failure is inadequate mating that results in the production of too many drones when the queen is unable to fertilize the eggs she lays in worker cells. At that time the colony usually tries to replace her by a process called supersedure. An old, failing queen and her young daughter may continue to live and lay eggs in the same colony for a considerable period. Honey bee queen, marked on the thorax. (Fig. 7) Queen cell cup being prepared by worker bees. (Fig. 8) Length of Development The three kinds of honey bees undergo the same type of development, known as complete metamorphosis. Each one takes a different length of time to develop as follows: 24-25 The Races of Bees Throughout the world there are many races of bees that have developed slightly different body characteristics, biology, and behavior. In the United States two races of bees are most common - the Italian and the Caucasian. The Italian bees have yellow or brown bodies with varying numbers of dark bands toward the end of their abdomens. They tend to raise young bees early and late in the year and need more honey for maintenance than do the dark races. The Caucasian bees are black with gray bands of hair.

They conserve their honey somewhat better and use more propolis than the Italian bees. Both races are usually gentle and the bees are quiet on the combs. Carniolan bees are a dark race with characteristics somewhat similar to the Caucasians. The honey bees available in the United States are the result of crossing and selection of bees from many different races in addition to those mentioned above. Beekeepers should try queens from different queen breeders to learn more about the behavior and honey production of different strains of the same race. Most strains are gentle when handled under the proper conditions. If you have bees that are not gentle, requeen them immediately with a queen from a gentler strain. There is no relation between temper and honey production. The Colony Social insect colonies, including honey bees, have often been regarded as a single superorganism because groups of individuals appear to serve the functions of organs, and the colonies undergo changes as a group that compare with the lifetime development of an individual. To understand and manage honey bees you must be familiar with the development and activities of the colony, and the seasonal changes that take place in it. The brood nest, where the queen lays eggs and young bees are reared, is the heart of the colony.

It may be only a small circle of cells on one side of a comb, or it may include up to 20 or more full combs (frames). The areas occupied by brood on individual frames are usually oval or circular. The entire brood nest, including all the areas of comb containing brood, is generally ellipsoidal or spherical so that it is readily surrounded by the cluster of adult bees in cool weather. The bees form such a cluster when the temperature drops to about 57 degrees F. (14 degrees C.). The area containing developing bees, but not the rest of the hive, is kept at a temperature of about 95degrees F. (35 degrees C.). The worker bees warm the brood nest to this temperature by moving their bodies and fanning their wings, activities that require honey as "fuel." In hot weather the bees cool the nest to 95 degrees F. (35 degrees C.) by fanning to evaporate dilute nectar or water present in the brood nest. The bees store pollen, their protein food, in the cells immediately surrounding the brood (Fig. 9).

In this location it is near at band to be fed to developing larvae and to be eaten by newly emerged adult bees. Tile nectar and honey are stored beyond this band, or shell, of pollen. A comb with sealed brood in the center surrounded by a ring of light colored pollen. Outher cels of the comb contain honey in open cells. (Fig. 9) In the fall, the brood nest and the majority of the bees are in the lower combs of the hive. The honey for winter food is above them and there must be pollen stored within the cluster area for winter use. This pollen and the developed food glands of the workers serve as a protein reserve for the colony until fresh pollen is available from springblooming plants. During the winter the bees in a hive of adequate size (at least two deep ]live bodies) move upward as they gradually cat the stored honey. In early spring the brood nest is most often in tile top part of tile hive with empty combs beneath it. If nothing is done to change this arrangement, the bees will slowly occupy the lower combs, and the queen will expand her laying to all areas of the ]live.

However, the direction of natural expansion is upward, so the beekeeper usually rearranges tile ]live as explained on page 67. Theoretically, one set of 10 deep combs is sufficient space for a prolific queen. In practice, 18 or 20 combs in two 10-frame hive bodies provide more suitable conditions for a large brood nest, perhaps because it can be more nearly spherical, rather than flattened as in a single hive body. The colonies need additional room for their rapidly increasing number of adult bees by late April or early May in central Illinois, or about the time of fruit tree and dandelion bloom. The nectar and pollen gathered from such plants may contribute to the crowding. The bees continue to store pollen near the brood nest and honey in the combs above it throughout the season. Without sufficient comb space, the workers gradually fill the cells of the brood nest with honey. This is highly desirable in the late summer to provide food for winter, but it is harmful earlier in the season when tile greatest possible number of cells is needed for rearing young bees. The crowded brood nest restricts the queen's laying.

Worker honey bees have abilities that allow them to accomplish tasks that many other insects cannot do. They recognize several different regions of the color spectrum including near ultraviolet, which man cannot see. However, they cannot distinguish red from shades of gray and black. Honey bees detect polarized light and use it for orientation when foraging. Their senses of smell and taste are highly developed for most materials that are biologically important to them. They readily detect differences in concentrations of sugar solutions and distinguish minute differences in the components of mixtures of odors or solutions. Field bees learn the location of their hive and the appearance of landmarks around it. They also learn the daily movement of the sun in the sky and compensate for it when using tile sun for orientation. Worker bees have a time sense, with a 24-bour base, that allows them to visit flowers or artificial food sources at the times when nectar and pollen are being offered. They can learn to associate a food reward with a flower scent after only one trial. Learning to associate color time, and form (shape) with food takes 3 to 40 trials. The honey bee colony has a simple system of communication that contributes to its success and adaptability.

The system is based on the exchange of food among members of the colony (Fig. 10) and on odors released in and outside of the hive. The queen's glands secrete attractive substances and odors that are removed from her body and shared by the workers of the colony. The materials keep the colony together and prevent the workers from laying eggs and building queen cells. However, if there is an insufficient supply, or if it is not distributed evenly in a crowded colony, the bees construct queen cells to produce a new queen. Odors secreted by workers are used to attract other bees and to alert and alarm the colony. The fruity odor of the scent gland causes bees to cluster when swarming. It is also used when workers rediscover other bees, a queen, or the hive entrance after a period of confusion. Disturbed and injured bees secrete a volatile material known as isopentyl acetate that smells like banana oil. It attracts and excites bees and prepares them to defend the colony by stinging the cause of the disturbance. Worker bees exchange food on a comb containing honey. The two bees in the center are responding to smoke by eating honey from open cels.

(Fig.10) A more complex means of communication may be present in the elaborate system of movements performed on the combs by bees when they return to the colony after collecting nectar and pollen. These movements, usually called dances or the "language" of the bee, contain information about the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. They may also contain information about the quality, or sugar concentration, of the nectar. Although the idea of a bee language has been widely accepted, many scientists and nonscientists still do not agree that the language theory satisfactorily explains how bees recruit others to a food source. There is agreement that the movements contain information because it has been thoroughly decoded. But if there is truly a sophisticated language, it should bring recruits quickly and accurately to new food sources tinder a variety of conditions. Instead, the percentage of success is often low, the time in flight is far longer than needed for direct flight, and many bees fly the opposite direction from the food. An alternative explanation proposes that odors of the food and of the aerial flight paths of foraging bees flying to it are used by newly recruited bees in finding food sources for the first time.

This idea is supported by observations that few bees can be recruited to all odorless food source although foragers already visiting the food perform more frequent and vigorous dances in the hive than they do when collecting scented foods. More new bees, rather than fewer, should reach the food if the dances are the primary means of directing prospective foragers to a food source. Two other observations bring the language theory into question. One is the effect of light wind, which does not interfere with flight, on foraging success of recruits. They do not find downwind food sources as well as ones upwind, indicating that odors borne by the wind outweigh the importance of information they receive from dancing foragers. Even a change in the number of bees visiting a food source from one colony can affect the success of recruits from another colony in finding the same source. When fewer bees from one colony fly to the food, fewer new recruits from a second colony are able to find it. Bees using a language should not be affected in this way. However, if the recruits are using the flight path to the food, such a path would have a weaker odor trail when fewer bees were flying along it.

It is natural, but not necessary, to relate the foraging success of honey bees to their use of a sophisticated language. Some stingless bee species use food odors and aerial odor trails and are even better able to exploit food sources rapidly than are honey bees. One question commonly asked about the dance language is, "Why does the information exist if it is not used?" Similar information is present in the movements made by solitary moths after a flight. These movements continue for a period of time proportional to the distance the moth flew, yet there is no other individual that makes use of the information. These controversial ideas are presented here to demonstrate that we do not know for certain all the facts about the activities of honey bees. More research is needed on the subject. A communication system similar to the one bees use to find food is used to select a new home for a swarming colony. However, the relative importance of odor, flight paths, and "language" has not been fully clarified. Scout bees visit available cavities, such as a hollow tree, cave, or hole in a building, and evaluate their suitability as a home for the swarm. After many visits, the bees agree which one is best and move to it as a group.

Honeymaking Bees make honey from several different sweet fluids that they collect from plants. Nectar, secreted by the nectaries, or glands, of flowers is the most common raw material, but some of it also comes from glands located on the leaves and buds of plants. This is called extrafloral nectar, and the glands are known as extrafloral nectaries. Honeydew is another sweet fluid that bees use to produce honey. It is surplus plant sap excreted by plant-sucking insects such as aphids and scale insects. Honeydew honey, called forest honey in Europe, is a wholesome product except when it is contaminated with mold or fungus organisms that darken it and lower its quality. Nectar-collecting bees make trips ranging in duration from a few minutes to 3 or 4 hours. An average trip probably takes about an hour, and a bee may make as many as 10 trips per day. In order to get a full load of nectar, a bee may visit only one flower, such as that of saguaro cactus, or several hundred flowers, such as those of white clover.

The nectar is carried back to the colony in the honey stomach, or honey sack. This is a storage organ in which no digestion takes place. It is controlled by the bee so that she can either regurgitate its contents or allow them to pass into her digestive system. She adds enzymes and waterlike secretions to the nectar from glands in her head. Nectar also contains plant enzymes, and honeydew includes enzymes of insect origin. When the bee returns to the colony, she passes her load of nectar to one or more young house bees and returns to the field. The house bees do the primary job of processing the nectar into honey. This consists of repeatedly regurgitating droplets of the fluid onto the tongue held beneath the head. The bee continues this activity for 15 to 20 minutes, adding more glandular secretions and reducing the water content of the nectar. The resulting, partially ripened honey is placed in cells in the comb where it loses more moisture to the air circulated through the hive by fanning bees. When nectar is coming into the hive in large quantities, it cannot be processed immediately, but is stored as hanging droplets or as partly filled cells over a wide area of the combs.

These small quantities of fluid lose moisture rapidly and are then processed and consolidated into full cells of honey. The filled cells are sealed with a capping of new wax. Processing changes the raw material containing 25 to 40 percent solids, mostly sugars, into honey containing an average of about 83 percent solids. This rise in the percentage of soluble solids is proportional to the drop in moisture content. In addition to these changes in physical properties, extensive changes in chemical composition take place during processing. Nectar usually contains a mixture of two or three sugars: sucrose (common table sugar), dextrose (glucose), and levulose (fructose). During nectar processing, enzymes present in the fluid split most of the sucrose into the two simpler sugars, dextrose and levulose. At the same time, enzymes are also responsible for synthesizing other, more complex sugars and transforming some of the dextrose into gluconic acid, the primary acid in honey. The final composition of different honeys is variable and complex, and differs according to the plant source. Sugars make up 95 percent or more of the solids present.

The simple sugars (levulose and dextrose) account for nearly 70 percent, and levulose is usually predominant. As many as 12 complex sugars including maltose are present in small quantities. Although sucrose is often found in high concentration in nectar, as in nectar from the clovers, it makes up only 1 to 2 percent of honey on the average. Enzymes present in honey include invertase, diastase, catalase, and glucose oxidase. There are many acids in honey besides gluconic acid, and together they contribute to its noticeably acid reaction (pH about 4). Hydrogen peroxide in honey is a factor in the antibiotic properties of honey. This material and the high density and acidity of honey make it toxic to many disease organisms. Because most honeys are supersaturated solutions of dextrose, they are unstable as a liquid. The excess dextrose eventually crystallizes out of the solution in the process called granulation. Some honeys never granulate, while others granulate in the comb before they can be extracted. Honey bees produce only comb honey, and the final product is sealed beneath a solid layer of wax cappings.

However, man has never been satisfied to have only the single product, so there are different forms of honey whose names relate to the different methods of production and preparation for market. These forms include section comb honey, bulk comb honey, cut comb honey, chunk honey, liquid honey, and granulated honey. Section comb honey is produced in small, square or rectangular wooden frames called sections. Each one holds about a pound of comb honey. Bulk comb honey is produced in shallow extracting frames, which can be sold as a unit containing several pounds of honey. Such comb can be cut into pieces called cut comb honey and sold in bags or plastic boxes. If the pieces are packed into jars and surrounded by liquid honey, they are called chunk honey. Liquid honey, also called extracted or strained honey, is separated from the comb by any of several methods. When honey solidifies it is known as granulated, crystallized, creamed, or candied honey. The granulation may be natural or the result of a special process described on page 90. Honey Bee Honey Bee Apis mellifera Copyright, Mark Cassino Honey Bees are an animal most of us learn about very early on, one way or another.

In Summer, many people step on Honey Bees and get stung while walking barefoot on a lawn. Honey Bees are usually very gentle creatures who mind their own business. They are too busy to worry about people or other animals. Honey Bees are normally about 3/4 of an inch long. Most bees are workers, which are female, but some are male, called "drones." Workers are slightly smaller than drones. All Honey Bees are reddish brown and black, with orangish-yellow rings on the abdomen (back part of body). The head , antennae , and legs are black. Honey Bees have thick, pale hair on the thorax (middle part of body). Honey Bees live in a nest, called a "hive." A single hive can have up to 80,000 bees, mostly workers. It is usually located in a hollow tree. The hive is ruled over by a queen bee. She is the largest bee in the hive, and she is the only female to mate. Males usually just hang around; their only purpose is to mate with the queen. Then they die. The workers do all of the work inside and outside of the hive.

Their jobs include: caring for larvae (baby bees), making wax, building honeycomb, cleaning up the hive, storing pollen , making honey, guarding the hive, collecting pollen and nectar . Honeycomb is layers of wax cells (little rooms) made into a hexagonal (six-sided) shape. The queen will lay eggs in the cells and Honey Bee babies, called larvae, will hatch. Larvae will eventually pupate (make a coccoon in their cells), and hatch out as adult bees. Honey Bees eat nectar and pollen from flowers. Nectar is the liquid in a flower, and pollen is a powdery substance which must be transferred from one flower to another to make more flowers. Larvae eat honey. Queen bees eat royal jelly. Royal jelly is a paste made by worker bees. The queen lays eggs which become either males, workers, or new queens, depending on the time of year and the age of the hive. After she makes new queens, she will leave the nest with some workers to start a new hive. The first new queen will kill all the others, and then she will be the queen of the old hive. Can you see the queen in this picture?

> When Honey Bees seek out nectar and pollen to make honey with, they visit many different types of flowers, including clover, dandelions, goldenrod, fruit trees, and milkweed. Once at the flower, the worker bee drinks as much nectar as she can hold. When she gets back to the hive, she passes the nectar on to another worker. This worker holds the nectar on her tongue until the water evaporates (leaves the nectar to go back into the air). She is left with honey on her tongue, which is stored in the hive. Bees eat their store of honey in the winter, when there is no food. When a bee finds a good place with lots of flowers, she marks the spot with a scent. She then goes back to the hive and does a little "dance" which tells the other bees the distance and direction to go. This communication helps the hive locate good places so they don't waste time always looking for flowers. Honey Bees are attracted to flowers with bright colors, but they cannot see red.

Plants, which have bright flowers so that insects will pollinate them, have to rely on some other animal (like a butterfly or hummingbird) if they have red flowers. When a bee enters a flower, it has to go deep down to get to the nectar. While it drinks nectar, the bee gets covered with pollen. The bee also collects the pollen in its pollen basket (part of its hind legs). When the bee moves on to another flower, some of the pollen from the first flower rubs off on the second flower. This is pollination. Now the plant will drop its flower and make a fruit with seeds in it. The seeds may grow into a new plant. The bees cannot live without the plants and the plants cannot live without the bees. Worker bees have a stinger which is sharp and has a barb on it (like a fishhook). The stinger is attached to a venom gland in the abdomen. Honey Bees only sting if they, or the hive, are in danger. If a Honey Bee stings a wasp, because the wasp has soft tissue, the bee can pull her stinger out and sting again.

However, if she stings an animal with tougher tissue, such as a frog or a human, the barb gets caught and the stinger tears out of the abdomen, along with the poison gland. This will kill the Honey Bee. The venom is what makes the beesting hurt. A muscle attached to the venom gland continues to pump poison into the wound, even after the bee is gone. Beestings, are not really dangerous unless you are allergic to bees! Honey Bees will usually leave people alone, but they are attracted to some soaps, perfumes, and hair sprays. If one comes near you, it is probably confused. Once it realizes you have no nectar, it will leave you alone. Many predators avoid Honey Bees because of their sting, but others eat them. The worst predator for Honey Bees is the Varroa Mite. Varroa Mites are tiny arachnids (spider cousins). Varroa Mites weaken the Honey Bee's immune system, which makes them vulnerable to diseases. The picture to the right show Honey Bees covered with Varroa Mites (the tiny red creatures).

Additional Media Honey Bee Queen: Facts & Appearance of Honeybee Queen Tap here to give us a call: For service & immediate attention Call 844-514-3980 Honey Bee Queen Although the honey bee queen is thought by many to be the most important member of her colony, honey bee workers sometimes determine when their colony is in need of a new queen. This occurs due to space constrictions, poor performance associated with age and the unexpected death of the queen. Because the queen is capable of producing up to 2,000 eggs each day, space within a hive can become constrained. A swarm results, wherein the mature queen leaves the colony with half of her workers to establish a new colony. The other half of her workers remain with a new queen and continue to perform their tasks within the old colony. Alternately, as queen honey bees age, their egg-laying abilities decrease, and they lay their eggs in less organized patterns. When an old queen begins to falter in performing such responsibilities, workers will induce her replacement, or supersedure. The aging queen is killed after the supersedure process. Lastly, when a honey bee queen suddenly dies, an urgent and unplanned supersedure occurs.

Worker honey bees identify several larvae within the proper age range and begin to condition these larvae to become queens. The sole difference between a honey bee worker and a queen is in nourishment received during the maturation process: workers feed prospective queens with royal jelly for their entire lives, while worker bees are fed royal jelly only during the first two days of their larval stage. Each colony can be ruled by only one queen at a time. When a virgin queen emerges, she locates other virgin queens and eliminates them one at a time. In the event that two virgin honey bee queens emerge simultaneously, they fight each other to the death. Queens control their workers by releasing pheromones known as the queen’s scent. After the new queen masters the hive, she attends a mating flight at a drone congregation site, where thousands of males wait. Drones discern a queen’s presence through her smell, but they will locate a queen by sight. Drones and queens mate in midair and drones die soon after giving their sperm to the queen. Queens mate with several drones in each mating flight, storing the drones’ sperm in her spermatheca.

The honey bee queen mates at an early age and usually attends only one mating flight, because her sperm reserves allow her to lay millions of eggs throughout her lifetime. Although a queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day during active seasons, the amount and pace at which a queen lays her eggs is greatly controlled by weather, food availability and the particular habits of her subspecies of honey bee. The queen’s fertilized eggs become female workers or future honey bee queens. The queen’s unfertilized eggs develop into male honeybees, or drones. Honey Bee Sexes Bee keeping in Barnsley, South Yorkshire Copyright © All rights are reserved. Site terms Facts & Tips - Honey Bee Sexes Honey bee colonies are perennial in nature. They undergo an annual cycle based around the seasons however they persist in the hive year- on- year. This differs from similar creatures such as bumble bees and common wasps where the colony - in effect - collapses at the end of the season. Bumble bees and wasps spend their season building up a new generation of queens which will completely vacate the nest and find a sheltered spot to over- winter before establishing a new nest the following season.

In this section we take a look at the different types of bee that go to make up the colony. TYPES There are 2 sexes of honey bee. There are the 2 castes of female bee - the queen and the worker - and the male drone. Each has an essential role to play in the life of the colony and the annual cycle the colony goes through. THE QUEEN The queen honey bee is effectively the “mother” of the colony. Her main role is to lay eggs and lots of them. If there are enough cells available she will lay up to 2500 a day. Once she has laid an egg, she has no further role to play in the care or upbringing of the larva that emerges from the egg. Under normal circumstances, the queen is the only egg laying bee in the colony. This ultimately makes her the mother to the colony. Each emerging young bee is her genetic descendant (and that of the multiple drones she has previously mated with). The regal title given to this caste causes a perception of the queen being the “boss”.

She may be the largest bee in the colony and have her every need attended to however she is very much a servant of the colony and her actions are very much determined by the workers in the colony. Queen life cycle A queen starts out as a simple fertilised egg. At this stage there is no difference between her and any other worker. Whether or not an egg becomes a queen is down to the workers in the colony. If the colony is ready to swarm or detects that it has a failing queen or even no queen the “house” worker bees will alter how they feed one or more larvae that hatch out. If the colony has time to prepare to raise new queens, it will extend one or more existing worker cells in the honey comb to form “queen cups”. These will usually be towards the bottom or edge of the main brood area of the comb. The queen lays an egg in these queen cups and once hatched (3 - 3½ days from being laid) the new larva is fed a rich diet of “royal jelly” by the “nurse” bees. This rich food allows the larvae to grow larger and more quickly than a normal worker.

The new queen (known as the “virgin queen”) emerges 16 days after the eggs was laid. This compares to the 21 days taken by a worker bee or 24 by the drone. If a queen is lost for whatever reason (e.g. is killed accidentally by the beekeeper), the colony will resort to making emergency queen cells. Providing there are eggs or very young larvae (up to 3 days old) present the colony will use these to raise several new queens. Picture showing queen cup (right) and sealed queen cell (left) They will draw out existing cells and start feeding what would have been ordinary worker larvae with royal jelly. The rich diet fed to the developing queen larva alters the anatomy of the larva (from that of the worker). The abdomen becomes notably longer than that of her sister workers. The larger abdomen accommodates the enlarged reproductive organs, namely the ovaries and spermatheca. When the virgin queen emerges from her cell, one of 4 fates await her.

She will be attacked and possibly killed by another queen that emerged ahead of her She will seek out and find other emerging queens and kill them (sometimes by stinging through the cell capping before the virgin queen has emerged) She will be ushered out of the colony to fly off with a number of other bees from the colony (a swarm), or She will be accepted by the colony, the workers of which will immediately start to care for her. The virgin queen will typically stay within the colony for a few days in order to feed and gain strength and allow her reproductive organs to mature a little further. Following this initial “rest period”, the virgin queen will emerge from the colony and make a few reconnaissance flights. She probably does this to ensure she knows where the hive is and also to find where drones congregate. The queen is particularly vulnerable to being taken by birds when flying due to her size and it makes sense for her to avoid lengthy flights. When ready, usually any time up to around 21 days from emerging from her cell, the queen will make a “mating flight”. She will head straight for the drone congregation site usually in the vicinity of the queen’s colony and up to 30 metres from the ground.

The queen flies up to the drones and mates repeatedly with several of them. Once her spermatheca is full, she heads back to the colony. She relies on the attendant workers for her every need. They feed and groom her and remove her wastes. The queen will spend the next season or two laying eggs. The number she lays will largely depend on the activities of the colony. They will control how many cells remain vacant for egg laying (increasing and decreasing the amount of stores of pollen and honey according to seasonal variations) and will control her egg production by varying the amount of food she is fed. The queen produces a pheromone called queen mandibular pheromone (also known as “queen substance”). As the workers clean her they distribute queen substance around the colony. This serves to maintain the colony in a “normal” state. However, as the queen gets older and begins to wear out, typically coinciding with a steady reduction in the number of eggs laid, she produces less and less queen substance. The colony senses this and begins preparation for her ultimate removal. This occurs by a process of supercedure where a new queen is raised and the old is killed off either by the workers or the new queen.

Supercedure is a natural process that will face nearly every queen. Supercedure may occur within the colony or once a colony has swarmed. A prime swarm (the first to leave a colony) will have the incumbent queen. Once the swarm establishes its new home, a new queen is raised and the old queen is killed. WORKERS The worker bee is - as the name suggests - the power house behind the colony. Workers are all female. They carry out almost all the duties that go into building and maintaining a colony. They are the smallest bee within the colony, being smaller than either the drone or queen. Worker bees, like the queen, possess a sting. The sting is a modified ovipositor or egg laying tube. Despite the presence of reproductive organs, the workers are infertile and lack the reproductive capacity of the queen. Nevertheless, workers can lay eggs under certain circumstances - usually in the total absence of a queen (pheromones produced by the queen inhibit egg laying by the workers). However, due to being infertile the eggs develop into drones. There are however some sub- species of honey bee (e.g. the “Cape Bee” of South Africa) where workers can lay eggs resulting in worker brood (see Bee Species ).

Life Cycle The worker bee starts out as a normal egg laid by the queen. The eggs hatches around 3 - 3 ½ days from being laid. The larva is fed “brood food” or “bee milk” which is largely a combination of nectar (or dilute honey), pollen and enzymes from the saliva of the “nurse” bees. The pollen provides the necessary protein required for rapid growth and the sugar the energy source. It is likely that the enzymes break down some of the more complex carbohydrates and proteins into simpler molecules that can be consumed by the larvae. A worker larva is fed approximately half the quantity of brood food fed to a queen larva. However, there is little difference in the ingredients of the food that is fed to each. Instead, it is more to do with the relative proportions of those ingredients. Research suggests that the queen larva is fed a significantly higher proportion of sugar in its food (royal jelly) and that this extra energy boost - given to a larva within its first 3 days - promotes an increase in certain growth hormones that cause what would otherwise become a worker to become a queen.

Following its emergence from the egg, the larva becomes a pupa after around 10 days and emerges from the cell as a young bee 21 days after the egg was first laid. Division of Labour Worker bees seem to follow a pattern of promotion within their society. As each worker gets older it progresses to new duties. These are: Age (approx) Find and collect pollen, nectar and water to bring back to the colony DRONES Drone bees are the hapless males within a colony. They seemingly have little or no purpose within the colony: they take no part in hive building or maintenance; they don’t defend the colony (drones do not possess a sting); they don’t gather food or nurture the larvae. However, drones perform one vital role in that they are responsible for genetic variation within successive generations of bees. Their primary purpose is to mate with virgin queens, spreading their genes to different colonies. Without this function, honey bee populations would quickly fall victim to disease and probably become extinct. Genetic variation allows living things to stay one step ahead of the disease causing organisms. Drone bees are larger than workers, but normally smaller than the queen.

They are characterised by their large compound eyes, which appear to come together at the top, and rounded stocky bodies. They are a result of unfertilised eggs which may be laid by a queen or worker. Drones are classified as being “haploid” in that they only posses one half of the pairs of genes found in the “diploid” workers and queen. Life Cycle Normally, drone eggs are laid only by the queen. The queen hold the eggs and sperm separately and has the choice as to whether or not an egg is fertilised as it is laid. The queen will lay drone eggs in drone cells. These are cells which have been enlarged by the workers in order to accommodate the larger body size of the drone. The queen detects the difference in cell type and lays worker or drone eggs accordingly. As with the two female castes, drone eggs hatch on day 3 - 3 ½. The larva is fed brood food and allowed to develop until the cell is capped over on day 10. The larva spins a cocoon within the cell and undergoes metamorphosis turning into a pupa. The drone emerges as a young adult on day 24.

The young drone, being unable to gather food for itself, is fed by the house workers. After a few days, the drone will begin to carry out reconnaissance flights. Their ability to navigate is probably the best of all 3 castes as they typically have around 75- 80% more facets to their compound eyes than the workers or queen allowing them to build a better visual map of the immediate area. Around 2 weeks after the drone emerges from the cell it will be mature enough to mate. Drone bees typically come together to fly in certain areas known as “drone congregation areas” or “mating yards”. Small patch of drone cells (wider and raised compared to worker brood) These areas are often several metres from the ground (up to 30 m) and will typically be in the vicinity of the apiary from where they have come however drones can fly several miles to find other established congregation areas. No one really knows how drones find congregation areas that may be a few miles away. It is likely that they are able to sense the odours of other drones over some distance using their enlarged and highly sensitive antennae. A congregation area may have from several hundred to several thousand drones.

A virgin queen will have already found such a congregation area from early reconnaissance flights. On her mating flight the queen will head straight for the congregation area. The drones will sense her arrival (their notably large antennae have 10 times the number of sensory receptors as those of workers or queens) and will immediately start to chase after her. Several drones will mate with the queen. Each drone mounts the queen in turn and inserts his endophallus into the queen. The drone’s sex organs inflate (almost explosively) within the queen, pumping sperm into her. This rapid inflation and expulsion of sperm causes him to spring backwards and fall away from the queen. The endophallus is gripped by the opening of the queen’s oviduct and results in the drone’s endophallus and part of the drone’s hind gut being ripped out of his abdomen. Each additional drone will remove from the queen the endophallus of his predecessor before undergoing the same fate. After mating the drone will often fall to the ground where he will die. Drones will be reared all through the season.

For those that haven’t mated, they will be forcibly ejected from the colony by the workers at the end of the season (late summer/early autumn) as they will be of no benefit during the winter. After ejection they soon starve or die from cold. honeybee | insect | Britannica.com Honeybee Alternative Titles: Apis, honey bee Related Topics hymenopteran Honeybee (tribe Apini), also spelled honey bee, any of a group of insects in the family Apidae (order Hymenoptera) that in a broad sense includes all bees that make honey. In a stricter sense, honeybee applies to any one of seven members of the genus Apis—and usually only the single species , Apis mellifera, the domestic honeybee . This species is also called the European honeybee or the western honeybee. Honeybee (Apis mellifera) Learn about the honeybees and brown bears of the Ural Mountains. Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz All honeybees are social insects and live together in nests or hives.

The honeybee is remarkable for the dancing movements it performs in the hive to communicate information to its fellow bees about the location, distance, size, and quality of a particular food source in the surrounding area. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. A honeybee (Apis) drinking nectar from a flower. Peter The following sections provide an overview of the different honeybee species, honeybee biology, and diseases of honeybees. For more detailed information on honeybees, their colonies, and diseases, see the articles beekeeping and colony collapse disorder . Apis species beekeeping: Honeybees and their colonies With the exception of A. mellifera, all other Apis species are confined to parts of southern or southeastern Asia . A. florea, the dwarf honeybee, occurs in southern Asia, where it builds its nests in trees and shrubs. A. andreniformis, the black dwarf honeybee, is native to forested habitats of southeastern Asia. A. dorsata, the giant honeybee, also occurs in southeastern Asia and sometimes builds combs nearly three metres (more than nine feet) in diameter. A.

cerana, the Eastern honeybee, is native to southern and southeastern Asia, where it has become domesticated in some areas. It is very closely related to A. koschevnikovi, or Koschevnikov’s bee , which is found only on Borneo and several other islands in Southeast Asia and on the Malay Peninsula . A. nigrocincta is native to Indonesia and Mindanao island in the Philippines . There are also a number of subspecies and strains of Apis. Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales A. mellifera is about 1.2 cm (about 0.5 inch) long, although size varies among the several strains of this species. The head and thorax, or midsection, are somewhat bristly and vary in colour according to the strain. Two large compound eyes and three simple eyes, or ocelli, are located on top of the head. Keen eyesight is complemented by two sensitive odour-detecting antennae. Body plan of a honeybee. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Honeybee sexes and castes There are two honeybee sexes, male and female, and two female castes.

The two female castes are known as workers , which are females that do not attain sexual maturity, and queens , females that are larger than the workers. The males, or drones , are larger than the workers and are present only in early summer. The workers and queens have stingers, whereas the drones are stingless. Queen honeybees store sperm in a structure known as the spermatheca, which allows them to control the fertilization of their eggs. Thus queens can lay eggs that are either unfertilized or fertilized. Unfertilized eggs develop into drones, whereas fertilized eggs develop into females, which may be either workers or virgin queens. Eggs destined to become queens are deposited in queen cells, which are vertical cells in the honeycomb that are larger than normal. After hatching, the virgin queens are fed royal jelly , a substance produced by the salivary glands of the workers. When not fed a diet consisting solely of royal jelly, virgin queens will develop into workers. During the swarming season, in the presence of a weak queen or in the absence of a queen, workers may lay unfertilized eggs, which give rise to drones.

Life cycle Ultimate Animals Quiz For all three forms of honeybees, eggs hatch in three days and then develop into larvae that are known as grubs. All grubs are fed royal jelly at first, but only the future queens are continued on the diet. When fully grown, the grubs transform into pupae. Queens emerge in 16 days, workers in about 21 days (on average), and drones in 24 days. After emerging, the queens fight among themselves until only one remains in the hive. The old queen and the majority of her workers typically have left the hive by the time the new queens emerge. The swarm, which typically reproduces during swarming, may form two or more new colonies at different nesting sites. Life cycle of the honeybee. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest A queen will often mate with many drones, a mating behaviour known as polyandry . Polyandry increases genetic diversity within a colony and thereby improves colony fitness and survival. Genetically diverse colonies have characteristics—such as increased population size, foraging activity, and food supplies—that favour the production of new queens and the formation of new colonies.

Hives The hive is a series of combs composed of two layers of six-sided cells made of wax produced and secreted by the workers. Food in the form of honey, plant nectar , and so-called bee bread, made from pollen , is stored in the cells. Honey , which the bees produce from the nectar of flowers, was virtually the only form of sugar readily available to humans until modern times. For this reason, honeybees have been domesticated by humans for centuries. The art of caring for and managing colonies of honeybees is known as beekeeping . Besides producing honey, honeybees play an important role in agriculture as pollinators of a wide variety of domesticated plants. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) use wax produced in the worker bee’s body to build a honeycomb … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. BioKIDS - Kids' Inquiry of Diverse Species, Apidae, bumble bees and honey bees: INFORMATION Skip directly to main content . Kids' Inquiry of Diverse Species bumble bees and honey bees Apidae Diversity The family Apidae is made up of over 25,000 species of bees in 4,000 genera.

( Gauld and Bolton, 1988 ; Michener, 2000 ) What do they look like? Adult bees are short stout insects. They are fuzzier than their relatives the wasps and the ants. They have chewing mouthparts, four wings, and straight antennae. Most of them have yellow and black stripes, but some are bright green, and some are all black. Most bees can give a painful sting. Bee larvae and pupae are never found outside their nest. Bee larvae look like grubs, with soft white bodies, no legs and brown heads. Honey bee queens are larger than other members of their colony, with workers being the smallest and male drones ranging in the middle. Other Physical Features female larger Where do they live? There are thousands of species of Bees all around the world. Bees can and do live in almost kind of climate. The only places bees do not live are in places with extreme cold all year round. In Michigan there are probably nearly 200 species. Biogeographic Regions native What kind of habitat do they need? Apidae species live anywhere there are flowers to feed from.

Some bumble bees can tolerate very cold temperatures and live in the far north and high in the mountains. These animals are found in the following types of habitat swamp How do they grow? Bees are holometabulous insects. This means that they undergo complete metamorphosis, passing through egg, larval, and pupal stages before emerging as an adult. Eggs are elongate, white, gently curved, and have a soft membranous shell. In social species, eggs are not laid with any food as workers begin to feed larvae as soon as they hatch. In solitary species, eggs are laid upon or near a food source enclosed in a cell with the larvae. Larvae are soft, whitish and grublike. They grow quickly, molting about four times as they mature. The honeybee has 5 larval instars (molts). Cleptoparasitic taxa hatch from the egg with a large sclerotized head and long curved mandibles, which they use to kill the host larvae or egg. They then begin to eat the hosts’ food source, and after the first molt take on the normal grublike appearance of other bee larvae.

Apidae larvae are unable to defecate as there is no connection between the midgut and hindgut. In solitary bees, after the larval food source is gone the bee will defecate, and then almost immediately pupate. Many bee larvae spin silken cocoons for themselves. Fertalized eggs develop into females while unfertalized eggs develop into males. After mating, the female stores the sperm in her spermatheca. Mating only one time will give her enough sperm for the rest of her life. As an egg pass down her oviduct, she controls whether it gets fertilized, by allowing whether or not sperm can exit the spermatheca as the egg passes. For more information, see the information on their close relatives, ants and wasps ( Hymenoptera ). ( Michener, 2000 ) Development - Life Cycle metamorphosis How do they reproduce? Some males fly over or around flowers, literally pouncing on females in order to mate with them. Copulation lasts from a few seconds to a few minutes at most. A male will grasp the female with his legs and sometimes his mandibles in order to hold on while they copulate.

Many female bees only mate once, and males compete to get at them first. Some males even dig down into the soil to encounter a virgin female as she emerges from her larval cell. Most males bees are able to mate multiple times, although Meliponini and Apini male genitalia is torn away during copulation, after which the male soon dies. Some females that regularly mate more than once are found in the genus Panurgus . ( Michener, 2000 ; Ramel, 2005 ; Michener, 2000 ; Ramel, 2005 ) Mating System eusocial Most bee species are solitary nesters. The female makes a tiny bee-sized chamber for each of her offspring, lays one egg, and supplies the chamber with a ball of pollen and nectar for the baby bee to eat. Then she seals up the chamber and builds another one. Some bees, like bumble bees and honey bees, are more social and build nests or hives. In social bee species, a single queen lays the eggs, while most of her daughters don't reproduce but stay with their mother and help take care of more and more sisters (on average, 60 thousand).

Some of the sisters are raised to be new queens, and they and their brothers fly away in the summer to mate and start new nests. ( von Frisch, 1950 ) Most bees are solitary nesters. Solitary bees construct their own nests, stocking each brood cell with a ball of pollen and nectar before laying one egg, sealing the cell, and building another. Solitary bees generally dye or leave before their offspring mature. When solitary bees do not leave before their offspring mature, but continue to feed and care for them, they are called subsocial bees. A colony is made up of 2 or more adult females, regardless of their social relationship. We usually think of a colony in terms of having many workers (all sisters), which do all of the foraging, brood care, guarding, and building, and one queen who is responsible for all egg laying. This is in fact the life of many honeybees ( Apis , Trigona , Melipona ), and they are considered to be highly eusocial. The queen is completely dependant on her workers, and new colonies are started by social swarms, which fly as a group to a new area never leaving a queen by herself.

Other bees live in much smaller colonies such as bumblebees (Bombini), sweat bees ( Halictidae ) and carpenter bees (Xylocopinae). Their colonies begin with a single reproductive female who carries out all tasks of nest maintenance including foraging, brood care, and egg laying. After the emergence of daughters, colonial life and a division of labor between the foundress (queen) and her daughters may arise. These colonies are called primitively eusocial colonies. Often, the queen is larger than her workers, but this is not a constant rule. Bee nests are made up of brood cells, usually with one egg laid in each cell. Most Bombus species however, lay a cluster of eggs together in a wax cell. Cells are made of wax, or dug into wood, soil, plant stems, or mortar. The most complex bee nests are made by Meliponini species, where clusters (combs) of wax brood cells are surrounded by layers of wax or resin food storage chambers, which are further surrounded by layers of wax mixed with resin or mud to protect the colony inside. Other types of colonies include 2 or more reproductive females who each provision their own egg cells.

This is called communal nesting. Most species that make communal nests also have individuals who nest alone. Communal nests can be made up of many species. It is not uncommon to find both solitary bees and wasps nesting communally together. This is especially common in areas where suitable nesting habitat is difficult to find, so individuals nest together in the only suitable areas available. The largest recorded communal nest aggregation was 423,000 bees covering 1300m squared. Solitary bees tend to line their brood cells with a waterproofing material to protect developing offspring. This material can be wax, pieces of leaves and petals, or varnish-like and made from saliva. ( Gauld and Bolton, 1988 ; Michener, 2000 ; Ramel, 2005 ; von Frisch, 1950 ) Key Reproductive Features Breeding season Spring or Summer Solitary female bees don't tend their babies after they close up their chamber. Bee species that form nests don't seal up the larvae, instead they feed and take care of them as they grow. Male bees never take care of offspring and do very little work. Parental Investment female parental care How long do they live?

Solitary bees hatch in the summer or fall and spend the winter in their nest. They emerge in the spring or summer to reproduce and then die. Among social bees, queen bees can live for several years. The workers usually live just a few weeks or months, although some live through the winter. Male bees usually live a few months at most, and often die shortly after mating. ( Michener, 2000 ) How do they behave? Many bee species (called robber bees) are parasitic upon other bee species. These bees eat the stored food meant for the host larvae, starving or even directly killing the host. Most bees forage during the day, whenever it is warm enough. Honeybees build large hives out of wax, high up in trees or cliffs. Bumblebees make smaller nests in holes underground, usually abandoned mammal burrows. Almost any kind of protected niche can be used by bees as a nesting site, such as beetle bored cavities in timber, holes in walls or hollow trees, snail shells, or under rocks. Some use abandoned bird nests, dead plant stems, or may tunnel into the mortar of houses and walls.

A few bees are nocturnal, and specialize on collecting pollen from certain night blooming flowers. Perdita species collect pollen only from evening primroses and their close relatives, and members of the cucumber family are frequented by Xenoglossa . In order to see better at night, nocturnal bees tend to have larger eyes and darker coloring. ( Gauld and Bolton, 1988 ; Michener, 2000 ; Ramel, 2005 ) Key Behaviors chemical What do they eat? Adult bees drink nectar and eat pollen, while larvae eat pollen, nectar, honey, and pollen or floral oils. Pollen is collected by the female parent in solitary species, or by the foundress and or workers in colonies. Females collect pollen on branched body hairs, which are later transferred to the scopa (carrying structure), generally located on the hind legs. An exception to this are the Hylaeus , which are hairless and lack scopa, instead transporting pollen in their crops. Bees normally collect dry pollen which is naturally sticky, but some bees mix pollen with regurgitated nectar to maximize its sticky qualities.

In taxa that have scopa to carry the pollen, nectar is carried in the crop, and is then refined to make honey. Some bees collect floral oils instead of nectar. When a female returns to her nest she regurgitates her crop full of nectar or oil into a honey pot or preconstructed cell for storage. ( Gauld and Bolton, 1988 ) Primary Diet insect-eating birds What roles do they have in the ecosystem? Bees are essential to the survival of many ecosystems, as without them many plants could not reproduce. Bees pollinate more plants than any other insect. They are so important, that many species of solitary bees in the family Megachile are farmed and cared for because of their importance in pollinating commercial crops. Some plants have developed clever ways to trick bees into pollinating them. Certain orchids (Ophrys) emit pheromones similar to those of female Andrea , Anthophora , Colletes , Eucera , Tetralonia , and other bees. Males smell the pheromones and are attracted to the flowers thinking that they are female bees. As the male tries to mate with the flower, he pollinates it at the same time.

( Ramel, 2005 ; Gauld and Bolton, 1988 ; Ramel, 2005 ) Ecosystem Impact pollinates Do they cause problems? Bees sting to protect themselves. They usually aren't dangerous, but large hives might sting a person enough times to endanger them, and some people are so allergic to bee stings that they can die from just one or a few stings. Ways that these animals might be a problem for humans injures humans bites or stings How do they interact with us? Bees are very important to the production of fruits and vegetables, and other crops such as flax, cotton, alfalfa and clover. Without bees, most crops could not be grown. The pollination industry is worth millions every year. Bees also provide wax, honey, bee pollen, propolis (used in cough syrups) and royal jelly. ( Michener, 2000 ; Ramel, 2005 ) Ways that people benefit from these animals:

Question: In honey bees, the Queen and workers are all female. What name is given to the males?
Answer: Drones