The Life Cycle Of A Worker Bee

It surprised me to discover that a bee lives for such a short time, only about forty days, depending on the conditions and time of year. They survive longer in the winter, up to about five to six months, again depending on conditions.

From egg to larva to hatched bee takes about three weeks. They then hang around the hive doing odd jobs, like feeding the larvae, cleaning, guarding, building combs and practicing their flying, for about three more weeks before they graduate to being field bees and go out into the world to collect food for the hive. They can do this for about three more weeks before they die.

I am no expert but it seems to me that flying must be difficult for bees. It appears that the flying wears them out and that is why they die after such a short time. They fly very little in the winter and they last for months not just weeks. If anyone has information that proves otherwise, please send it in to me. I will post it here.

The amazing thing, in my opinion, is that they seem to be born with the knowledge of their predecessors. They seem to know what to do and how to behave and have a good understanding of each other. Given that their brain is tiny in comparison to ours they accomplish so much.

Take for example the dance that the bees do when they come back to the hive after finding a good source of nectar. They do a type of danse to communicate to the other bees in the hive where this new source of nectar is. How do they all know that the dance refers to the angle of the sun in the sky and so on. Who taught them about angles and the position of the sun? Who taught them how to understand the dance or how to do the dance?

The queen’s life cycle is a bit different. The queen starts out just like any other bee in the hive. The egg she hatches out of is just like any other. The difference is that she is fed royal jelly. The royal jelly causes her togrow larger and develop fully and be productive. The worker bees are all unable to lay eggs.

To begin the process the workers build a special type of comb to accommodate the new queen's egg.