Did you know each hive has only one queen, and one male drone bee for every 100 female worker bees?
Truly hive royalty! Queens are selected when they're still eggs. The egg is fed lots of royal jelly, a nutrient-rich gelatinous substance. Queen bees even get specially built cells in the hive to fit their larger size. There's just one queen per hive, and she can lay up to 2,000 fertilized eggs in a single day! Queen bees can live up to 5 years.
Most of the bees in a hive are worker bees, and they are ALL female. They do lots of important jobs to keep the hive running smoothly, from guarding the hive to finding nectar-rich flower patches to making honey. Worker bees usually live to be about six weeks old, and they're busy from the get-go!
These are the only male honey bees. There aren’t many of them, and they have just one job: to mate with a new queens (in a different hive) so she can lay fertilized eggs, which then develop into baby bees. Drones live about 12 weeks.
They work together to keep the hive healthy and make sure everything works smoothly. Scroll through to learn more about worker bee jobs.
Pollen Packers store pollen in honeycomb cells when foraging bees bring it back to the hive. (Pollen is used to feed the baby bees.)
Drone Feeders feed the baby drones.
Queen’s Assistants groom and feed the queen.
Foragers search for food and gather it for the hive.
Undertakers take any bees that have died out of the hive.
Guards protect the hive from outside invaders.
Fanners fan the hive with their wings to keep it cool and clean. They’re like the air conditioners of the hive!
Guards protect the hive from outside invaders.
There’s only one queen per hive, and whenever she moves, her attendants move with her. When it’s time for a new queen, the workers choose a larvae that is just a few days old. They feed that larvae extra royal jelly which allows her reproductive organs to develop. That makes her larger than worker bees.
Queen honeybees don’t wear crowns, so how can you tell which one she is? Here are a few ways to spot the queen in a colony.
Click here to see if you found the queen.
These are all female worker bees. There can be 50,000 bees in a healthy springtime hive.
Notice the queen bee and her attendants all around her.
The top arrow shows a queen bee laying an egg in a honeycomb cell.
The bottom arrow shows how the queen bee laid eggs in these cells and now they are capped, waiting for the baby bee to develop.
This bee has “pollen pants” the baskets or hairs on her legs are full of yellow pollen. She’s looking for a place to store it.
Notice cells that have pollen in them. You can see how different flowers have different color pollen.
This is a big DRONE or boy bee. See how big his eyes are? He has probably come to eat some honey.
Look at the cells that have honey in them. They are capped with beeswax.
The little white C shapes are larvae. They started as eggs, they were fed for a few days. The workers will cap the cells soon so the baby bees can develop.
These baby bees are chewing out of their cells and about to climb out!
Bee-hind the Scenes with a Beekeeper and the Tools of the Trade
Learn from Scientific American about how bees warm up during the cold winter months.
Spend a beautiful day inspecting a hive with a beekeeper, Tom Knaust! Go frame by frame through a thriving honey bee colony, pointing out ways to assess the health of the hive. Get up close with the queen bee, a few drones, thousands of female workers bees, meet newly hatched baby bees and more!
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