Honeybees are frequently divided into three groups: queen, workers, and drones. A hive consists of over 60,000 to 80,000 bees in the summer and 20,000 to 30,000 bees in the winter. During the winter, bees …show more content…
There is merely one queen bee existing in a hive, and can live from three to five years. For a queen bee, it takes 16 days from egg to emergence. The queen is the only bee with fully developed ovaries. Her job is simple. Laying the eggs of the hive’s next generation. The queen mates only once with numerous drone bees. She is capable of laying 2000 offspring per day, and will continue fertile for life. Fertilized eggs will become worker bees and unfertilized eggs will become drone bees. The queen eats royal jelly, a paste prepared via worker bees. When the queen dies or comes to be unproductive, the rest of the hive will create another queen by choosing a young larva and nourishing it royal jelly. Worker bees are the only bees people see, virtually all of the bees in the hive are workers. They are female bees, but are not sexually developed. Worker bees live four to nine months during the winter season, then only six weeks during the summer months. During their lifespan, the bees have specific chores: housekeeper, nursemaid, construction worker, grocer, undertaker, guard, and conclusively after twenty-one days they become a hunter collecting pollen