The Hive and its Occupants

Female worker Drone Queen

Picture from: Zachary Huang (Extension.org) The dot on the queen is to be able to identify her readily in a large colony.

Since honeybees are social insects, they live together in very large groups of about 45,000 to 60,000 bees per hive. Interestingly, there are more females than males in each colony. The males called drones represent only 5% of the total population. Drones take 24 days to emerge as adult. Amazingly the queen "chooses" the sex of the egg when laying them! As a result unfertilized eggs (parthenogenesis) will be males and fertilized eggs, females. The males are bigger and a little wider than the female workers. They are very distinguishable by their enormous compound eyes, looking like they are wearing large sunglasses! Drones do not contribute to their colony... they don't gather pollen, or nectar, they don't defend the hive, they don't help rear the youngs either, and they don't produce wax... In our human world, they would certainly pass for lazy-bums! Basically, they eat, mate and die right away...What a shame!!! However, the drones are really important for the success of other colonies. Their only purpose in life is to mate with a virgin queen from another colony, hence the big eyes(?) to spot her. But this exploit is rarely done in their life time.

Honey bees are very sophisticated: There is a "cast system" among the queen and its workers, and a very effective division of labor within the worker themselves. A worker bee takes 21 days to develop to its adult stage, and is the smallest of the colony. This honey bee cannot lay eggs as its reproductive system is called "imperfect". However, she has many qualities which will help the colony to thrive and survive. For instance, the ability to collect an excess of nectar and pollen (wonderful for us!), to defend the hive from intruders, to rear the youngs and to regulate temperature of the hive which permits this fabulous insect to be perennial. This honey bee is a relentless worker. During her life span (about 35 days in the spring and up to 200 days in the fall), she will do many tasks, starting by cleaning and feeding the larvae, then she will build combs. At this time she is a "Hive bee". Later in life, she will "graduate" to being a forager, looking for pollen and nectar becoming a "Field bee". t Even if he workers seems and are specialized, they can perform any tasks, and are very good at reorganizing themselves if they are short of some "specific-task" honey bees.

The queen takes about 16 days to develop to her adult stage. She is definitely slender and longer than the workers or drones. Her wings sit on her abdomen unlike her peers. She is a perfect reproductive female. About a week after she is born, she will take what is called her mating flight, usually one or 2; during that time out of her hive she will look for ten to a dozen drones. This is all the mating she will have to do her entire life; she will "stock" the sperm and use it as needed! Remember the poor drones will die right after mating. Here in Minnesota a very good queen is likely to lay 200,000 fertilized eggs in her lifetime. She will follow the rhythm of our climate; she will start very slowly in January increasing her egg production in the spring, and again in the summer to slow it down in the fall.