Savethebees

A DESCRIPTION OF HONEY BEES

THE WORKER

The honey bee is born in an egg from the queen in a wax brood cell. It hatches after three days and turns into larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly to keep it alive for the first day, then for six days they feed the larva honey and pollen. Then the larva becomes a pupa. The first pupa can’t do anything. During the sixteen days as the pupa is trapped in a sealed cell, it grows into a worker bee, which is always a female. On the twentieth day, the worker comes out of the cell. Workers do mostof the work, but tghey do not mate and lay eggs. They callect pollen, make the honey, store the water, heat the hive and keep the hive cool.

The Drone

The drones are the male bees. They became a full adult in twenty-one days, and are larger than the female. They have very big eyes and have no stinger. They are lazy and have no work to do, all they do is mate with the queen and get fed by the workers who went and foraged themselves. They either die while mating or they are kicked out from the hive by winter.

THE QUEEN

Before the old queen dies, she lays an egg in a large queen cell. The nurse bee feeds the egg only royal jelly. In sixteen days the new queen emerges, killing all queens in other colonies around her. In the first seven minutes, she mates with seven or more drone bees to lay more eggs. After that, the queen only lays eggs. She can lay up to 2000 eggs a time!