Lifecycle of the Bee
We all know the important role that bees play in the ecosystem and their importance in pollination of plants such as fruits and vegetables. But, do you know where a bee comes from and how its life is structured?
As I have covered previously, there are 3 types of bee in a hive. Queen, Drone and worker. All 3 start life the same but change during the development stage to become their chosen member of the hive community.
What came first, the Bee or the egg?
Like most insects, bees start life in an egg. The Queen travels up and down the brood comb laying eggs in each cell. The egg is long like a grain of rice but only the length of a pin head. The Queen lays the egg in a way that it sticks to the base of the cell and points upright. The Queen promptly moves on as she lays thousands of eggs per day.
Over 3 days the egg develops and hatches a bee Lave. The lave is snow white and lies curled up in the bottom of the cell with no legs or sight. Nurse bees will tend to the lave, feeding it royal jelly for the first couple of days before transitioning to nectar and pollen. Over the course of 6 days the lave grows and will shed its skin several times, at the 6th day of lave development the worker bees will cover the cell in wax, called a cap.
It takes 12 more days for the bee to develop, in this time the lave spins its self a cocoon and becomes a pupa. The pupa begins to develop its head, body, abdomen and thorax, taking the shape of an adult bee.
It takes a total of 21 days for a worker bee to complete its development from egg to emerging bee. Once the pupa is ready to enter the world it begins to eat away the wax cap over the cell, much like a chick will peck away at the egg shell with its beak.
The bee has now emerged from its cell and has entered its new life in the hive, newly emerged bees take on the role of Nurse bees and will tend to other brood and the Queen. This job only lasts a week or so while they complete their development into an adult bee.
The next role for these bees are to become a forager. The newly promoted bees will take on an orientation flight, flying only a very short distance from the hive to take note of landmarks and familiarize them selves with the location of the hive. Once this orientation is complete the bees then begin to travel from the hive in search of nectar, pollen and water. A forager bee will travel as far a 5km from the hive in search of the best pollen and nectar they can find, returning to the hive only when they have loaded their legs with pollen.
The bee completes its 30 day life as a guard, these guards monitor the entrance to the hive, keeping out foreign bees, pests and other insects that should not be there.
A bee has a short lived life but in that time they can travel up to 200km and produce 1 table spoon of honey.