Life cycle of honey bees

Melifera bees have an extremely complex social organization, so they are considered animals eusocial.They live in a society divided into castes, with a reproductive and an infertile part.Within the hive, each individual has a specific role or function and it is essential that they be carried out for the sake of the hive.

In this article of Animals and Pets Online we talk about the life cycle of honey bees, how is the development of these animals, what is the cycle of the queen bee and which individuals compose a hive.

Life cycle of bees in the hive

The life cycle of honey bees is closely related to the seasons, so the activity in the hive begins with the arrival of spring, the increase in daylight hours, the rise in temperatures and the spring rains, it causes an explosion of life in the wild areas.In some warmer areas, a hive can start producing new individuals in January, but it will not be until May approximately when the peak of greatest production occurs.

After the summer and with the fall in temperatures brought by autumn, the bees reduce their activity and spend the winter feeding on the honey produced during the warm months.

Development of a new individual

Queen bees can lay two types of eggs, fertilized, which will give rise to female worker or queen bees (depending on the type of feeding) and unfertilized eggs, which will produce male or ditch bees.

The eggs are deposited in the hive cells.The incubation times of the eggs and bee larvae will depend on the type of individual that is going to produce.Thus, the worker bees take about 20 days, the ditches about 24 days and the queens only need a couple of weeks to leave the cell

Bees are insects with holometabolic metamorphosis, this means that, during their development to the adult state, they go through some phases where The individual has nothing to do with his adult appearance.When the eggs of bees hatch, they leave a larva that should be fed by the workers until they reach a certain size and enter their pupal state.

In this phase the individual is apparently inactive, normal Mind protected by a capsule, inside which many changes regulated by hormones are taking place.While pupa, they will develop the legs, wings and all the organs necessary for adult life.At the end of this stage, the individual's skin hardens and emerges adult animal.

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Biological cycle of the queen bee

The life of a queen bee lasts between 3 and 4 years.When the bee colony is mature enough, that is, it has a considerable number of individuals, the workers begin to feed several larvae with a special meal, royal jelly.This causes the developing individual to grow as a queen bee, since feeding on this substance produces a higher than normal growth in bees.After two weeks, a new queen bee will emerge from the cell , which will remain in the hive for a few days before mating.

Mating in bees is known as a "bridal flight" The new queen bee leaves the hive exhibiting a dance that will attract males from other hives.With them it will mate several times until it accumulates enough sperm.Then, this queen bee will form a swarm with other worker bees and will depart to another place to form a new hive.

Occasionally that is, if the queen bee that controls a beehive falls ill or is unable to perform its functions, the workers will kill her so that another takes her place, without a healthy queen bee, the beehive would be sentenced.

The worker bees

In a hive, most of the bees that we can find are workers.The life cycle of these individuals is shorter than that of the queen.During the summer they usually do not exceed the month and a half of life , although in winter, due to the low activity and little wear of the body, they can live up to 4 months, all winter.

Worker bees carry out all the necessary activities so that the hive is maintained, except for reproduction, which is only the queen's task.The workers are responsible for cleaning all the cells in the hive, hatching the eggs, feeding the larvae, honey collection and pollen , creation and restoration of new cells and being guardians of the hive.

The drones

Drones are male bees that come from unfertilized eggs.Weeks before a hive starts producing queen bees, males are produced.The only function these animals have is merely reproductive.Drones, when they establish themselves as adult individuals, leave the hive and walk away waiting for the bridal dance to begin.They die after mating or, if they have not matched, they are expelled from the hive just before the winter begins.

If you want to read more articles similar to Life cycle of honey bees , we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.

Bibliography

Calderone, NWand Page, Jr, RE1988.Genotypic variability in age polyethism and task specialization in the honey bee, Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae).Behavioral Ec ology and Sociobiology, 22: 17-25.
Fewell, JH, and Winston, ML1992.Colony state and regulation of pollen foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L .Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 30: 387-393.
Keeling, CI, Slessor, KN, Higo, HA, and Winston, ML2003.New components of the honey bee ( Apis mellifera L .) queen retinue pheromone.PNAS, 100 (8): 4486-4491.
Page Jr.REand Peng, CYS2001.Aging and development in social insects with emphasis on the honey bee, Apis mellifera L..Experimental Gerontology, 36: 695-711.
Seeley, TDand Morse, RA1976.The nest of the honey bee ( Apis mellifera L.).lnsectes Sociaux, 23 (4): 495-512.

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