The Honeybee

A Little Information On The Worker, Queen, and Drone bees.

Workers - Reproductively underdeveloped females that do all the work of the colony. A colony may have 2,000 to 60,000 workers. The worker bees have the stingers. The work cycle of the worker bee: hatches out, starts as a nurse bee, then into housekeeping, guard bee, and finally as a forager going forth to collect nectar and pollen to bring back to the hive. Then dies of overwork.

Drones - Male bees - Fat and hairy, no stinger. A colony may have 0 to 500 drones during spring and summer. Drones fly from the hive and mate in the air with queens from other colonies. They die after mating. Surviving drones get kicked out of the hive in the fall to die. The queen will make new drones in the spring.

Queen - The queen will live approximately 2-5 years and produce up to 1,500 eggs on a good summer day. She is mated once when born by up to 20 drones. When a queen dies or is lost, workers select a few young worker larvae and feed them a special food called "royal jelly." These special larvae develop into queens. Therefore, the only difference between workers and queens is the quality of the larval diet. There is usually only one queen per colony. The queen also affects the colony by producing chemicals called "pheromones" that regulate the behavior of other bees.

Honeybees are in trouble here in mother earth. There are many pests and parasites inpacting our honeybees, and beekeepers are trying to control the problems.

Treacheal mites have been here since the early 1980s, and grow and breed int eh breathing tubes of the honeybees. these very small mites interfere with breathing, and weaken the bee.

Viroa mites have been here since the 1980s and mate and grow with the developing honeybee. They will puncture the exoskeleton of the honeybees, and suck on the internal juices. They are about the size of a head of a pin. Think ouf yourself having a frisbee on your back, feeding on your blood, and you cannot get it off.

Small hive beetles are a recent problem, and have developed the knack of smelling beehives from a long ways off. They enter the hive, and are too hard for the bees to attack. They have a hard, curved shell, and can hide in cracks and crevases. They are about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch long. When in a weak hive, they will start laying thousands of eggs. When the eggs hatch, the larva go through the comb, eating and destroying it. Eventually, any bees that are left abscond, and a fermented mess runs out the front of the hive.

Foulbrood has been around for many years.

Wax moths have been around for many years.