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Bee Colony Members and How To
Recognize The Bees In Your Hive
Bee colony members include the queen, the worker and the drone.
Understanding the difference between these bees and the roles each play will help you better care for your colony.
The Crowning of a Queen
The queen is most important of all the bee colony members, for without her a hive will die within weeks. Why? Because during the spring and summer months, the average life cycle of a bee is only a few weeks due to hardships and predators. It is the queen’s job to lay sufficient eggs to replace the up to 1,800 bees that die daily.
When a queen is too old or worse yet, there is no queen, workers will begin to produce a replacement from one of the bee colony members. They select either an egg or a very young larva and feed her royal jelly throughout her larva stage. In just a couple of weeks she is a fully developed queen, ready within days to mate.
She then leaves the colony to mate between 10 to 12 drones, all of whom will die in the process. Afterward, she returns home to lay eggs – lots of them – for the rest of her life to produce more bee colony members. A queen will lay anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 eggs per day and can live up to five years. She may take small rest periods of 5 or 10 minutes, but generally she lays eggs around the clock. And you thought you had it rough!
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How to Recognize the Queen
The queen will be longer – usually one and a half times longer – and thinner than the workers. Also, her wings will be shorter. Her body will be more pale than the others, and she will have less pronounced stripes on her abdomen. Just behind her head, she will also have a bald spot. Beekeepers will often mark her with a colored dot so she can be easily recognized among the bee colony members.
The Queen's Court
She will be surrounded by workers who are known, naturally, as the royal court. Every worker takes a turn in the court. They feed her, touch her and rub their antennas over her. By doing this, they will then spread her scent throughout the hive.
The Worker
Workers are the go-to ladies of the bee colony members. They are made up of female bees whose reproductive organs have not developed. They are the smallest bees in the hive and do all the work. A worker bee has pollen baskets, a honey stomach, wax glands and – unfortunately for us – a barbed sting. One colony can have hundreds of thousands of workers.
In the winter, a worker can live up to 140 days, but in the summer, she will live for only 15 to 48 days. If she isn’t killed by predators or an accident, she will work herself to death within five weeks. In the early days of her life, she feeds the queen, stores nectar and pollen brought in by other bees and cleans the hive.
When she is three weeks old, she will begin to leave the other bee colony members and eventually fly miles each day, to collect nectar and pollen and pollinate our gardens and orchards. She will do this until she can no longer fly. Then at the ripe old age of five weeks, she will leave the hive and die.
The Drone
Male bees are the drones. They are much larger and are a bit more square-shaped than the other bee colony members.
They do not have a sting, and their only job is to mate with the queen. They will live anywhere from 21 to 32 days.
In many ways, drones are the Rodney Dangerfields of the bee colony members in that they don't get much respect. In the fall, the worker bees will literally pick up the drones and toss them out of the hive. If the drones try to return, the workers will refuse to let them back in. Eventually, the drones give up and look for queens from other colonies with which to mate.
Other Useful Beekeeping Information
Raising bees for your own honey is a great first step toward self reliance. Here are some reasons you will want to keep bees on your homestead.
Interest in earning some income away from the offic? Then consider selling honey and other ways you can earn income off your land.
If you want to keep bees, it will help to understand how they work. Learn about the different members of the bee colony.
Once you decide to keep bees, a crucial part of your success will be where you place your hive. Here's how to find the best beehive location for your colony of bees.
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