Honeybee life cycle

Honey bees are social insects. As such, the honeybee life cycle depends greatly on this social structure.

There are three castes of bees: queens, which produces eggs; drones or males, which mate with the queen; and workers, which are all non-reproducing females. The queen lays eggs singly in cells of the comb. Larvae hatch from eggs in 3 to 4 days and are fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larvae pupates. Queen and drones are larger than workers and require enlarged cells to develop. Queens complete development in 15.5 days, drones in 24 days and workers in 21 days for larvae and pupae stages. Only one queen is usually present in a hive. New queens develop in enlarged cells by differential feeding by workers when the existing queen ages or dies or the colony becomes very large. Virgin queens fly on a nuptial flight. New colonies are formed when newly mated queens leave the colony with worker bees, a process called "swarming" - swarms of bees are often noticed and sometimes cause concern until they find a suitable nesting location. A queen may live three to five years; drones usually die before winter; and, workers may live for a few months. A colony may typically consists of 20,000 to 90,000 individuals.