Honey Bee Facts

Queen Bee

Queen bees are the largest individuals in most colonies and carry out many important functions in the hive. The queen is responsible for laying a constant supply of eggs to build up and maintain the hive’s population at adequate numbers. In a good year, a queen may lay as many as 200,000 eggs!

The queen also produces chemicals called pheromones that control and organize many of the behaviors of her colony. Each queen has her own distinct pheromone profile, which allows her colony to recognize her, defend her and meet her needs to keep the hive safe and strong.

Drone Bees

The only males found in the hive, drones perform only one task during their lifetime: mating with new queens. When a drone reaches sexual maturity at about two weeks of age, he begins taking mating flights. These flights usually take place in spring and summer afternoons and last about 30 minutes.

Newly matured queens and drones from several hives typically join in these flights. In most instances, the queens mate with multiple drones and store the drones’ sperm in an organ called the spermatheca. The queen will then use this stored genetic material to fertilize her eggs for the rest of her life.

Worker Bees

Worker bees are by far the most numerous caste in hives and, as their name implies, carry out all of the work needed to keep the colony fed and healthy. During their first days as mature adults, workers tend to perform tasks inside the hive, such as cleaning and capping cells.

As they mature, worker bees begin to perform more tasks inside the hive, including feeding the queen and developing brood, drawing out new comb, and managing food stores. The oldest and most experienced workers tend to perform the most dangerous chores: guarding the hive against intruders and foraging outside the hive for pollen and nectar.

Life in the hive

A honeybee hive usually has between 20 000 and 80 000 bees living together in a colony. A colony is made up of one queen bee and several hundred drones (males), with female worker bees making up the balance. All the bees share one goal: survival of the colony.

A bee produces up to 60-10 pounds of honey per year.
A hive can make 20-60 pounds of honey.
There are 20,000-80,000 bees in a hive.
80m-100m hives in the US.

Honey Making

Making honey is an important task for worker bees. They feed it to the developing larvae and also need it as a food source over the winter. The work involved in gathering nectar from flowers and transforming it into honey back in the hive requires that all the worker bees in a colony work together.

The honey made by bees is, of course, also enjoyed by people, as well as by other animals and insects.