The Honey Bee Colony
The honey bee colony is a place that is almost exclusively female:
- The Queen is the only fertile member of the hive. A European honey bee queen lays around 2500 eggs per day. Eggs which have been fertilized usually develop into workers. If the workers need to raise up a new queen, they feed the larvae that develop from some of the fertilized eggs a diet of royal jelly. Unfertilized eggs develop into drones.
Raising a new queen from egg to maturity takes 16 days. The life span of an adult queen is from 2-5 years. To ensure they have a strong queen, many beekeepers replace the queen each year. This tends to prevent swarming.
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The Workers are immature females; they do all the work in the hive as well as the outside foraging. Under certain conditions, a worker will lay eggs in an attempt to raise a new queen. Since the worker can lay only unfertilized eggs, the attempt fails.
Raising a new worker from egg to maturity takes 21 days. The total life span inside and outside the hive of an adult worker is 2 - 6 weeks in summer and up to about 11 months in winter. The life span of the worker during foraging season is apparently based on distance flown. After about a total of 188 miles flown, regardless of number of trips involved, the worker bee's muscles are exhausted, and she dies. A foraging bee that makes 9, 5-mile trips in a day during a honey flow, will die in about 4 days.
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The Drones are the only male members of the hive. There are at most a few thousand of them. They cannot sting, and their exclusive role is to mate with a queen. In the late fall, the workers will generally expel the drones from the hive and they die. If they are "lucky" enough to mate with a queen, they die immediately after mating!
Raising a new drone from egg to maturity takes 24 days. The life span of an adult drone is 4 - 8 weeks.
"Such is their toil, and such their busy pains, As exercise the bees in flow'ry plains, When winter past, and summer scarce begun, Invites them forth to labor in the sun; Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense; Some at the gate stand ready to receive The golden burthen, and their friends relieve; All with united force, combine to drive The lazy drones from the laborious hive: With envy stung, they view each other's deeds; The fragrant work with diligence proceeds."
Virgil, The Aeneid
Colony Collapse Disorder Part 1
Colony Collapse Disorder Part 2
Sustainable Living Quote:
In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature
- Mollie Beatty