Bees are some of humanity's most vital little creatures. Their work enables one third of our food supply world-wide. These fuzzy air-borne insects are currently experiencing a great tragedy, which has caused a great extinction or drop in a large number of their species. I found out that I'm allergic to them after stepping on one and being stung at an early age, yet they're another one of the creatures I'm largely fond of.

For The Queen!

They're organised into 3 classes

Queen - 
The queen is an adult, mated female and is the largest bee in the colony. She lays 2000 eggs a day - roughly 400,000 a year. She is born when conditions are favourable for swarming and the old queen decides to lay an egg in a 'queen cup.' The workers then pack the egg cell with beeswax and leave the young queen larva to grow. When she's ready to come out, the new-born virgin queen simply chews her way out of the cell. By this time, the old queen has packed up and left to colonise another place with the prime swarm at her side. Born into a life of royalty, the new virgin queen grows up being specially fed by worker bees in order to make her sexually mature. Queen honey bees don't mate with drones from their home colony. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually protect her with their lives. If the queen suddenly dies, the entire (up to 60,000-strong) worker population starts producing drone eggs. The drones then start consuming the hives resources without replenishing them and the colony soon begins to die from starvation. 
In the case of a Brazilian bee called ' Schwarziana quadripunctata' though, a nest can have multiple queens or even dwarf queens, ready to replace a dominant queen in a case of sudden death. The workers bees of this colony can even force undeveloped dwarf queen larvae and queen larvae to be converted into worker bees, or be erased due to limits on their food supply.

Worker Bee - 
The majority of a hives population are worker bees. They collect the pollen, make the nest and honey, and care for the young and the queen. They do almost all of the work really, but they do it with a dance. It's called the 'bee dance' or 'waggle dance' and they use it to communicate information regarding food and resources with each other. This dance style varies from species to species as well. Similar to how rockers might dance to heavy music (Head-bangin') in comparison to people dancing to hip-hip (... Swangin')
They create honey by flying to different blossoms and collecting a sugary juice called nectar.
When they have a full load, they take it back to their nest. There they pass the nectar to other worker bees who chew it, until it gradually turns into honey. The bees then place it in their walls made of beeswax and fan the honey with their wings until it's dry. When it's ready, they plug the cell with a beeswax lid to store it and keep it clean. They'll use this honey as food and will distribute it throughout their colony.
All Worker bees are female and are the smallest bees in a colony. Some will take up the job of laying eggs, but are only capable of producing unfertilized eggs, which turn into males, also known as 'drones' - a process of the haplodiploid sex-determination system.
An exception to this rule - laying worker bees in some subspecies of honey bees may also produce diploid (and therefore female) fertile offspring in a process called thelytoky. 

Warning: Worker bees can sting you, but only once – They have a barbed sting in their tale which once lodged into your skin, doesn’t retract. When this happens the sting and the poison gland breaks free, and the worker bee dies soon after, releasing an alarm pheromone which alerts other workers that a threat is nearby. Some people are particularly allergic to bees and medical treatment should be sorted, never the less. The poison can contain parasites and other nasty things. In other cases where the species doesn't have a sting, it uses its mandibles - the paired teeth that can be opened and closed to chew wood, manipulate wax, clean other bees and bite other workers or pests.
Most worker bees only live for a month due to the strenuous activities they undertake in order to keep the colony thriving. The wear and tear simply becomes too much. 

Drone - 
Like the ant drones in my previous article, bee drones are the only male bees in the colony and are the product of an unfertilized egg. Unlike the female worker bee, drones don't have stingers and don't participate in nectar, pollen gathering or battle. The drones life purpose is to catch up with a fertile queen bee from another colony and mate. They're a bit bigger than worker bees and have eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens. Drones die off or are ejected from the hive by the worker bees in late autumn, and do not reappear in the bee hive until late spring. Such is life.

Cool facts about bees

1) Bees have been around for millions of years!

2)  Honey is the only food that includes all the necessities to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water; and it's the only food that contains "pinocembrin", an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning. There are rumours that a person can live off just honey.

3)  A honey bee can fly at about 15 miles per hour, and can do this for 6 miles.

4)  The average worker bee produces about 1/12th a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

5)  A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles (the equivalent of three orbits around the earth) to collect nectar equivalent to 1 kilogram worth of honey.

6) Bee's can recognise & learn human faces! The image in THIS article depicts what it would be like to see a person through the eyes of a bee. 

7) They're dying off!

That's right. Sad but true. If we didn't have bee's most of us would die.
They need your help! 

Pesticide and the climate change has been a proven cause of their rapidly falling numbers. You can read more about that HERE (note: I'm not one to discuss whether climate change is natural or is caused by mankind, but this is a current discussion and debate being held between people all over the world.)

Don't mess with bees or you might end up like this guy!


I'm actually pretty amazed at how closely bees and ants resemble the complex structures of even our human civilisations. When I think of queen bees laying 'royal' eggs, then 'getting the heck' out of there, it reminds me of a human medieval power structure. Those in line to the throne might have personal reasoning to assassinate any standing in their way to it, including the king or queen themselves for example. As I said, a bee colony can only have one mated queen, and so this issue is sorted out through a fight to the death involving the two queens and the workers bees. In most disputes and battles in amongst themselves and with other colonies, drones (the male bees) sit on their arses and eat honey, as shown belown. 

Bees come in many different shapes and sizes, but generally have the same structure. Their colour varies widely between species and showcases some very fascinating patterns.

Pic's of the day

A honey bee working the fields, collecting pollen.

A blue wild bee 

 A 'Green Sweat Bee' on a yellow flower.

Three solitary male bee's taking a nap on a branch.

A bumble bee, covered in the treasures of her work.



Thanks for Reading :) Hope you liked the article.