Bees have a strict social structure in which all members assume an individual role. The size of a hive evolves from 10,000 in winter to 70,000 in summer.
All of them are worker bees, except some 1000 drones and one queen. Just before winter all drones are removed from the hive and die of hunger. This means only the workers and one queen remain to hibernate.
The queen is the mother of all bees. She is impregnated once by a number of drones and can subsequently lay eggs for the rest of her live (2 to 5 years). In spring she lays up to 1600 eggs a day.
The fertilised eggs produce female worker bees.
Male drones are produced by unfertilised eggs.
The worker bees take care of about everything in the hive.
Immediately after being born they start cleaning cells and keeping the hatch of eggs warm. After a number of days they feed old and young larvae.
After fourteen days they start secreting wax. They then repair damaged wax cells or build new ones. In their third week they patrol the area surrounding the hive.
In their final 2 weeks they visit flourishing flowers to drink nectar and collect pollen. After six weeks of hard work they die of exhaustion.
In the bee community workers do not exactly have a part-time job.
When the hive becomes too populated in spring, the worker bees will rear a new queen.
The old queen will then leave with part of the bees to find a new home. This is called swarming.
If you want to hear more of this fascinating story, please go to chapter “Kids” of this site.