The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure. Binomial name Linnaeus, 1758 Synonyms Apis mellifica Linnaeus, 1761 The Western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. ... Eusociality is the phenomenon of reproductive specialisation found in some species of animal, whereby a specialised caste carries out reproduction in a colony of non-reproductive animals. ...

A honeybee swarm Image copyleft: Image taken by me, released under GFDL Pollinator 03:46, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...

Colony life

Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. There are three castes of honey bees: queens, which produce eggs; drones or males, which mate with new queens and have no stinger; and workers, which are all non-reproducing females. The queen lays eggs singly in cells of the comb. Larvae hatch from eggs in three to four days. They are then fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larva pupates. Queens and drones are larger than workers and so require larger cells to develop. A colony may typically consist of tens of thousands of individuals. Species see text A bumblebee in flight The bumblebee is a flying insect of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. ... In this image of a female Polistes wasp tending to a nest, a long, black petiole, by which the nest is attached to the branch, is quite apparent. ... Binomial name Linnaeus, 1758 Synonyms Apis mellifica Linnaeus, 1761 The Western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. ... The queen bee is an adult, mated female in a honeybee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. ... Drone Drones are male honey bees. ... A worker bee is a female honeybee which performs certain tasks in support of a bee hive. ... Honeycomb Honeycombs on a Sacred fig tree A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen. ... A larval insect A larva (Latin; plural larvae) is a juvenile form of animal with indirect development, undergoing metamorphosis (for example, insects or amphibians). ... Cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha) pupa Chrysalis redirects here: for other meanings see Chrysalis (disambiguation). ...

While some colonies live in hives provided by humans, so-called "wild" colonies (although all honey bees remain wild, even when cultivated and managed by humans) typically prefer a nest site that is clean, dry, protected from the weather, about 20 liters in volume with a 4 to 6 cm² entrance about 3 m above the ground, and preferably facing south or south-east.

Development

Stages of development of the drone pupae.

Development from egg to emerging bee varies among queens, workers and drones. Queens emerge from their cells in 16 days, workers in 21 days and drones in 24 days. Only one queen is usually present in a hive. New virgin queens develop in enlarged cells through differential feeding of royal jelly by workers. When the existing queen ages or dies or the colony becomes very large a new queen is raised by the worker bees. The virgin queen takes one or several nuptial flights and once she is established starts laying eggs in the hive. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2624 × 1968 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2624 × 1968 pixel, file size: 1. ... The phrase Virgin Queen could refer to Elizabeth I of England, Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, she never married, thus was a virgin queen. ... To meet Wikipedias content policies, the external links section for this article may require cleanup. ... A worker bee is a female honeybee which performs certain tasks in support of a bee hive. ...

A fertile queen is able to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs. The unfertilized eggs develop into drones and the fertilized eggs develop into either workers or virgin queens. The average lifespan of a queen is three to four years; drones usually die upon mating or are expelled from the hive before hibernation; and workers may live for a few weeks in the summer and several months in areas with an extended winter.

The weight progression of the worker egg, larvae.

Source: Stone, David M. Overview of Bee Biology University of Illinois Laboratory Highschool; web accessed Oct. 2006 A Corner of Main Quad The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, or simply Illinois), is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious campus in the University of Illinois system. ...

Sources

• Development of honeybees bee-info.com, accessed Oct 2005
• Stanley E. Flanders (1960). Caste in the honey bee. Insectes Sociaux 7 (1): 9–16. 
• H. Rembold (1964). Die Kastenentstehung bei der Honigbiene, Apis mellifica L.. Naturwissenschaften 51 (3). 

Insectes sociaux is a scientific journal dedicated to the study of social insects. ... Die Naturwissenschaften (The Natural Sciences) is a weekly publication of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. ...

See also

• Bee bole
• Winter cluster

The honeybee is a colonial insect that is often maintained, fed, and transported by farmers. ... The queen bee is an adult, mated female in a honeybee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. ... A worker bee is a female honeybee which performs certain tasks in support of a bee hive. ... A laying worker bee is a worker bee that lays unfertilized eggs usually in the absence of a queen bee. ... Drone Drones are male honey bees. ... Domesticated Western honey bees are kept in beehives. ... Recently hatched honey bee larvae are feeding on royal jelly for three days. ... Honey bees learn and communicate in order to find food sources and for other means. ... A swarm about to land Swarming is the natural means of reproduction of honey bee colonies (considering the colony as the organism rather than individual bees which cannot survive alone), including the domesticated Western honey bee. ... Binomial name Linnaeus, 1758 Synonyms Apis mellifica Linnaeus, 1761 The Western honey bee or European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a species of honey bee. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Trinomial name Apis mellifera carnica Pollman, 1879 The Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica) is a subspecies of Western honey bee. ... Trinomial name Apis mellifera mellifera Linaneus, 1758 The European dark bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) was domesticated in modern times, and taken to North America in colonial times. ... Apis mellifera ligustica is the Italian bee which is a sub-species of the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera). ... Species HYBRID (see text) Africanized honey bees (AHB), known colloquially as killer bees, are hybrids of the African honey bee, Apis mellifera scutellata (not ; see Collet , 2006), with various European honey bees such as the Italian bee A. m. ... Subspecies A. m. ... Beekeeping, tacuinum sanitatis casanatensis (XIV century) Beekeeping (or apiculture, from Latin apis, a bee) is the practice of intentional maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. ... For the rock song by Nirvana, see Beeswax (song). ... For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation). ... A very uniform completely filled frame, before uncapping. ... An Apiary in South Carolina, Langstroth hives on pallets An apiary (also known in the US as a bee yard) is a place where beehives of honeybees are kept. ... Domesticated Western honey bees are kept in beehives. ... Langstroth hives on pallets The Langstroth bee hive is the standard beehive used in many parts of the world for bee keeping. ... Top-bar hives are a style of beehive used for beekeeping. ... Apiology is the scientific study of bees, a branch of entomology. ... A honey extractor is a mechanical device to extract the honey from the beeswax or honey comb. ... This is a list of topics concerning beekeeping and honey bees. ... Races of honey bees Some biologists use race synonymously with subspecies or - in botany- variety, to refer to divisions within a species. ... Common diseases, parasites, pests, and ailments of the honey bee include: // Varroa mite on a honey bee larva Main articles: Varroa destructor Varroa destructor and Varroa jacobsoni are parasitic mites that feed off the bodily fluids of adult, pupal and larval bees. ...

External links

• Life cycle information by the FAO

Possible meanings: Faro Airport (Portugal) Federation of Astrobiology Organizations Financial Aid Office Food and Agriculture Organization This page expands a three-character combination which might be any or all of: an abbreviation, an acronym, an initialism, a word in English, or a word in another language. ...

References

Temporal Polyethism in Bees