Topsfield, MA

February 20, 2007

Bee School

Bee Basics

Three Castes of Honey Bees

• There are three types of honeybees (Apis millifera) in a hive:

• Thousands of female WORKERs,

• Hundreds of male DRONEs, and

• One QUEEN (complete female).

Bee Type Gestation

The Worker Bee

• The life of all honeybees starts as an egg, about the size of a comma "," which is laid by the queen in the bottom of a wax cell in the brood area of a hive. A worker egg hatches after 3 days into a larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first, then pollen & honey for 6 days. It then becomes an inactive pupa. The honey comb has hexagon cells on both sides of a vertical central wall. As shown in the photo, these cells are inclined upward, primarily to retain liquid nectar and honey.

The Worker Bee

• During its 14 days as a pupa, sealed in a capped cell, it grows into a worker (female) bee, emerging on the 20th day. Workers do everything but lay eggs and mate. They build the comb from wax extruded from glands under their abdomen. They clean, defend, and repair the hive. They feed the larva, the queen, and the drones. They gather nectar, pollen, water, and propolis. They ventilate, cool & heat the hive.

Age related jobs of the Worker

0-3 days Cleaning self, comb, hive

3-15 days Feeding older brood honey, pollen, water, some royal jelly

Feeding 0-3 day brood royal jelly (hypopharyngeal glands)

Queen attendant

12-15 days Orientation flight (wing muscles)

15-18 days Building Comb (wax glands)

Ventilating the hive

Processing\Packing Honey, pollen, propolis, and water

Guard duty

21+ days Field Bee – Forager, Scout, Robber

Duties of A Worker Bee

The Drones

• Male bees are called drones. They emerge in 24 days, larger than the female workers. They have large eyes and no stinger. They lead a life of leisure, doing no work while being fed by the workers. Their sole purpose is to mate with a queen from any hive, thereby transferring the genetic traits of their mother. They die upon mating, or are expelled from the hive as winter approaches.

The Queen

• Before an old queen dies, or departs to start another hive, she lays an egg in a large queen cell. The nurse bees feed the larva a diet of only royal jelly, or bee's milk, made from a gland on their heads. In only 16 days a new queen emerges. She seeks out and destroys any rival queens, because there can be only one queen per colony.

The Queen

• When 10 days old, a new queen takes a high maiden flight, pursued by drones from nearby hives. In about 13 minutes, she mates with 7 or more of them, storing their sperm for the rest of her life of 2-5 years. She produces chemical scents which regulate hive activity.

The Queen

• The queen lays about 1200 eggs per day, about 200,000 per season. This is necessary since worker bees only live 6 weeks in the summertime; and a colony needs to have 40 to 50 thousand bees at its peak. She is cared for by the worker bees. This queen has been marked with a red dot for easy identification.

Worker Bee Behavior• Worker bees gather pollen

which they stick to their back legs, to carry back to the hive where it is used as food. Pollen from the stamens of one flower, stick to their bodies, and is carried to another flower where it rubs off onto the pistil, resulting in cross pollination. Mankind's food supply depends greatly on crop pollination by honeybees. Nectar is sucked up through the proboscis, mixed with enzymes in the stomach, and carried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evaporated into honey.

Worker Bee Behavior

• Worker bees must maintain the hive's brood chamber at 94 degrees F to incubate the eggs. If it is too hot, they collect water and deposit it around the hive, then fan air through with their wings causing cooling by evaporation. If it is too cold, they cluster together to generate body heat. Propolis, or tree resin, is used to seal any openings in the hive against drafts or invaders.

External Anatomy

Glands of a Worker Honey Bee