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No 6 The Life Cycle of The Honey Bee

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Julian Pearson
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33 views2 pages

No 6 The Life Cycle of The Honey Bee

Uploaded by

Julian Pearson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The life cycle of the Honey Bee

Advisory Leaflet No: 6

There is clear evidence that humans have been engaging with honey bees for more than
4000 years. Despite this, bees remain completely wild creatures with a life pattern that
has changed little since they first evolved.

The life of a colony of bees revolves around the queen bee. When a new queen hatches
her first task is to kill any other hatchling queens in the colony. Having safeguarded her
position, she then leaves the hive for anywhere up to 10-12 mating flights, during which
she will mate with a number of drones (male bees). She will store all the sperm from the
drones she has mated with and will not mate again. Returning to the hive she will, within
a few days, start laying eggs.

The queen lays both fertilised eggs,


which hatch into worker (female)
bees and un-fertilised eggs, which
hatch into drones. After three days
the eggs hatch into grubs. For the
next six days the grubs are fed and
cleaned by the worker bees. They are
then sealed into their cells with a cap
of wax. Worker bees hatch 12 days
later and drones 15 days later.
Queens can live for up to 6-7 years
but rarely survive for more than 3 or
4.

Young worker bees spend their first


10-12 days acting as nurse bees,
looking after the queen, tending the
eggs and grubs and generally keeping
the hive clean. Nurse bees fulfil one
other essential function, they are able
to produce wax which is used to build
comb, either for egg laying purposes
or for storing honey. As they grow
older, they lose this ability.

For the next period of their lives,


again 10-12 days, they act as guard
bees at the entrance of the hive,
receiving nectar and pollen from the
foraging bees and storing it within the
hive, and defending the hive from
marauding wasps, bees from other
colonies attempting to steal honey, and any other unwanted visitors, including
beekeepers!

For the final period of their lives the bees act as foragers until they simply wear
themselves out. During the summer the typical life span of a worker bee is around 6
weeks, but this is due to physical wear and tear. Bees entering the winter period can live
6-8 months until the season starts again.

Drones have only one purpose and that is to mate with a virgin queen. If successful,
they die shortly afterwards. They play no other role within the life of the colony and each
autumn are ejected from the hive and left to die.

Most years the colony will swarm which is the colony’s natural way of reproducing and
creating new colonies. To prepare for this,
the colony needs to raise a new queen
who will take over when the existing
queen goes off with the swarm. To do this
they select one or more fertilised eggs
and build very greatly enlarged cells
around them, known as queen cells, When
the eggs hatch, the larvae are fed a
special diet of royal jelly. These cells are
sealed on day 9 of the cycle and the new
queens emerge 7 days later. The first new
queen to hatch then sets about killing the
other emerging queens.

Shortly before the first of the queen cells hatches,


the existing queen leaves the hive, together with
around half of the colony’s bees. This is called a
swarm.

Before they go, the bees gorge themselves on honey


in order to feed themselves for the next few days.
The swarm may fly anywhere up to 3 miles from the
hive before settling as a cluster, sometimes in
unusual places!

The bees will rest here for anywhere from a few hours to a few days whilst their scout
bees seek out a suitable location for their new home, which could be anywhere dry and
they can protect.

www.lunevalleybeekeepers.co.uk

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