Honey bee in the field
Honey
Bee From Egg to Adult
Honey Bee, common name for any of several species of highly social bees known for their honey-hoarding behavior and their use as a domesticated species (see Beekeeping). The European honey bee is important in modern agriculture and in nature, providing pollination for many valuable crops and wild plants. It is native to Asia and the Middle East and was introduced to North America by early European colonists. By the mid-1800s honey bees had become widespread. Today, they are naturalized on every continent except Antarctica. Honey bees can be easily reared, are adaptable to many climates and to laboratory conditions, and have a complex social life. They are among the most studied and best known insects.]DIVERSITY
In addition to the familiar European honey bee, there are six other recognized species of honey bees, including the Indian honey bee, Koschevnikov’s honey bee, the dwarf honey bee, the andreniform dwarf honey bee, the giant honey bee, and the mountain giant honey bee. The European, the Indian, and to some extent the dwarf honey bees are the species that have been domesticated, although the European honey bee is by far the most widespread domesticated bee and the only species kept in North America. There are many races of the European honey bee. The ones most popular in modern beekeeping are the Italian, Carniolan, and Caucasian. Most honey bees used in hives today are mixtures of these and sometimes other races. Africanized honey bees, also known as killer bees, are a hybrid of African and European races naturalized in the western hemisphere.
III. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
The honey bee is a social insect that can survive only as a member of a community, or colony. The colony inhabits an enclosed cavity, its nest. Domesticated colonies are kept in artificial containers, usually wooden boxes, known as hives.
Castes
The honey bee community consists of three structurally different forms—the queen (reproductive female), the drone (male), and the worker (nonreproductive female). These castes are associated with different functions in the colony; each caste possesses its own special instincts geared to the needs of the colony.
1.
The
Queen
The queen is the only sexually productive
female in the colony and thus is the mother of all drones, workers, and future
queens. Her capacity for laying eggs is outstanding; her daily output often
exceeds 1500 eggs, the weight of which is equivalent to that of her own
body.
Anatomically, the queen is strikingly
different from the drones and workers. Her body is long, with a much larger
abdomen than a worker bee. Her mandibles, or jaws, contain sharp cutting teeth,
whereas her offspring have toothless jaws. The queen has a curved, smooth
stinger that she can use repeatedly without endangering her own life. In
contrast, the worker honey bees are armed with straight, barbed stingers, so
that when a worker stings, the barbed, needlesharp organ remains firmly anchored
in the flesh of its victim. In trying to withdraw the stinger, the bee tears its
internal organs and dies shortly thereafter. The queen bee lacks the working
tools possessed by worker bees, such as pollen baskets, beeswax-secreting
glands, and a well-developed honey sac. Her larval food consists almost entirely
of a secretion called royal jelly that is produced by worker bees. The average
lifespan of the queen is one to three years.
Workers bee
Worker bees are the most numerous members
of the colony. A healthy colony may contain 80,000 worker bees or more at its
peak growth in early summer. Workers build and maintain the nest and care for
the brood. They build the nest from wax secreted from glands in their abdomen.
The hexagonal cells, or compartments, constructed by the workers are arranged in
a latticework known as the comb. The cells of the comb provide the
internal structure of the nest and are used for storage of the developing young
bees and all the provisions used by the colony. Comb used for storage of honey
is called honeycomb. Workers leave the hive to gather nectar, pollen, water, and
propolis, a gummy substance used to seal and caulk the exterior of the nest.
They convert the nectar to honey, clean the comb, and feed the larvae, drones,
and the queen. They also ventilate the nest and when necessary, defend the
colony with their stings. Workers do not mate and therefore can not produce
fertile eggs. They occasionally lay infertile eggs, which give rise to
drones.
As with all bees, pollen is the principal
source of protein, fat, minerals, and vitamins, the food elements essential for
the growth and development of larvae of all three castes. Adult bees can subsist
on honey or sugar, a pure carbohydrate diet. Besides gathering and storing food
for all the members of the colony, the workers are responsible for maintaining
the brood at 33.9°C (93°F), the optimum temperature required for hatching the
eggs and rearing the young. When the nest or hive becomes too hot the workers
collectively ventilate it by fanning their wings. During cool weather, they
cluster tightly about the nursery and generate heat. The eggs, which are laid
one per cell, hatch in three days. The larvae are fed royal jelly for at least
two days and then pollen and nectar or honey. Each of the hundreds of larvae in
a nest or hive must be fed many times a day.
For the first three weeks of their adult
lives, the workers confine their labors to building the honeycomb, cleaning and
polishing the cells, feeding the young and the queen, controlling the
temperature, evaporating the water from the nectar until it thickens as honey,
and many other miscellaneous tasks. At the end of this period, they function as
field bees and defenders of the colony. The workers that develop early in the
season live extremely busy lives, which, from egg to death, last about six
weeks. Worker bees reared late in the fall usually live until spring, since they
have little to do in the winter except eat and keep warm. Unlike other species
of bees, honey bees do not hibernate; the colony survives the winter as a group
of active adult bees.
3.
The Drone
Bee
Drones are male honey bees. They are
stingless, defenseless, and unable to feed themselves—they are fed by worker
bees. Drones have no pollen baskets or wax glands and cannot secrete royal
jelly. Their one function is to mate with new queens. After mating, which always
takes place on the wing in the open air, a drone dies immediately. Early
investigators of the mating habits of the honey bee concluded that a queen mates
only once in her life. Recent scientific studies, however, have established that
she usually mates with six or more drones in the course of a few days. The
motile sperm of the drones find their way into a small, saclike organ, called
the spermatheca, in the queen’s abdomen. The sperm remain viable in this sac
throughout the life of the queen.
Drones are prevalent in colonies of bees
in the spring and summer months. As fall approaches, they are driven out of the
nests or hives by the workers and left to perish.