LIFE OF HONEY BEES

Honey bees lives in colonies, just like humans they need to be social and cooperative to provide their own needs and necessities, they work together to collect and store foods, so the new born bees in their colonies have food to be used for the future. They are also willing to sacrifice their own lives just to protect their colonies from any dangers.

There are three types of bees in a colony and different kind of tasks they need to be done to maintain the balance of a colony, if a bee didn’t do his job, the other bees in the colonies have no choice but to kick him out of the hive until he starve to death, so there is no place for the useless and lazy individuals in a bee colony.

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THE THREE TYPES OF HONEY BEES

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WORKER BEES (infertile females)
The worker bees has the biggest role in a colony and their job is the most difficult among the three types of bees, all of the worker bees are females, so girls be proud!, but you’re not a bee after all haha. The worker bees are the provider, protector, builder and maintenance of the hive.

Worker bees has a different tasks depending on their age, the young worker bees(nurse bees) feed the bee larvae with pollen and nectars, and the older ones (teenagers) protects the hive against predators they also build the hive these worker bees secrete wax to build a honeycomb. And when they reach the right age (adult) they become foregers and scouts, the job of a foreger is to collect nectar and pollen from flowers and bring it to the hive, and the job of a scout is to find a potential place to build a hive to start a new colony.

The worker bees also is the only bees from its race that has a stinger and that can sting, and the honey bee can sting once because when the honey bee attacks and stung her victim, the stinger will leave in the flesh of her victim, and because of this she got traumatized and die, imagine… she sacrifice her life just to protect the colony.

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THE DRONES (males)
The drones (males) has the easiest task, their only job is to mate or have sex with the queen bee and provide sperm for fertilization of the eggs, looks like a happy life, hahaha too early too celebrate boys, because after a drone have sex with the queen bee he dies immediately, and drones have no choice but to mate with the queen because if a drone refuse or do not mate with the queen, he been kicked out from the hive by the worker bees where he will quickly starve to death.

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THE QUEEN BEE (fertile females)
The queen bee is the only female in the colony that has an ability to lay eggs, the queen bee mate with different drones regularly and the queen need to lay thousand of eggs day. If a queen bee doesn’t lay enough eggs or die, the worker bees replace her with a new queen, the worker bees choose small larvae and feed them with a substance called ROYAL JELLY to develop a queen bee cell and to develop ovaries needed to lay eggs.

Swarming
When the queen bee dies the worker bees choose one of them (infertile female) to be a queen bee, they do this by feeding the chosen worker bee a substance called royal jelly and this new queen creates a new colony. The new queen and some of the worker bees leave their current colony to create a new one, and the newly created queen from a larvae takes over and lead the original colony.

ROYAL JELLY is a substance secreted from the glands of the young worker bees (nurse bees).

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Just like ants Honey Bees are the one of the most hardworking creatures, they also have the most organized community, their colony has no place for laziness, each of them has a role to build and protect their colony.

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want to know more about honey bees click here ➡resources

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thats all for now, till next time.