The 3 Kinds Of Bees In A Hive

Drone

Queen

Worker

Worker Bees

Nearly all of the bees in a normal hive are worker bees. They are the bees at the entrance who fan their wings to ventilate the hive and are smaller than the drones or the queen. All worker bees have stingers while the drones do not. The workers are undeveloped females and in emergencies lay only unfertilized eggs. The worker bees, as the name indicated, are the nectar and pollen gatherers, the wax builders, the honey processors, the house keepers and the guards.

Drones

The drones are the male bees. They are shorter and heavier-set than the queens, also larger than the workers, and are easy to locate in the hive. The drone does not have organs for gathering honey or secreting wax and their only value is in fertilizing the queen. They are big eaters, therefore, all combs with excess drone comb should be replaced every year with full sheets of comb foundation. The drones are driven from the hive to starve during a shortage of stores or at the end of the the honey flow.

The Queen

The queen normally is the mother of all the bees in her colony. She is longer and slimmer than the drone and larger than the workers but is not nearly as easy to locate as the drones. Beginners often mistake a worker bee gorged with honey for the queen but after seeing a laying queen in the hive there should be little difficulty in recognizing the queen. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE THORAX OF THE QUEEN (THE MIDDLE PART ONTO WHICH THE WINGS AND LEGS ARE ATTACHED) IS BALD AND SHINY while the thorax on the workers and drones are covered with tiny hairs.

Development Of The Bee

The queen normally lays 1, 000 to 2, 000 eggs a day, depending on the season, honey flow, etc. Formerly it was thought that queens laid as many as 3, 000 to 5, 000 eggs daily at the height of the season. The queen deposits each egg on the bottom of the cell and thereafter the brood temperature of approximately 97 degrees must be maintained. The larva food must be placed around the egg before it will hatch, which normally occurs in three days.

The initial development of the honey bee. Photo courtesy U. S. D. A.

The final development of the honey bee. Photo courtesy U. S. D. A.

The development of the honey bee in the egg, larva, and pupa stages.

The eggs hatches into a tiny horseshoe shaped larva which can barely be seen with the naked eye but the larva develops rapidly so that on the sixth day after it hatches it nearly fills the cell. It then is capped over and soon spins its cocoon and turns into the pupa stage. On the twenty-first day the worker bee cuts the capping off its brood cell and emerges as a downy, fully developed bee, able to walk about and it soon takes up its housekeeping duties of feeding the unsealed larva. When about a week old they turn to building comb and take their first flights. In another week they become field bees and gather nectar. A worker bee lives only about six weeks during the busy season so its development must be rapid.

The queen hatches on the sixteenth day while the drones emerge on the twenty-fourth day.

Breeds Of Bees

WILD BLACK BEES: The ordinary wild black bees found in trees were originally imported from Germany. They have a tendency to swarm and it is very hard, even for experienced bee men to locate the queens. These bees are nervous and tend to rush out of the hive when smoked too much. Their temperament is about average.

ITALIAN BEES: The Italian bees probably constitute well over 90% of all of the bees and queens produced commercially. The Italian bee is yellow with several dark bands about the abdomen. The color varies from a rusty leather color to golden, depending on the strain, (those about half-way between are known as 3 banded and are by far the most popular). The queens are light orange in color and are easily located.

The Italian bees have an average temperament and stay on their combs well when the hive is opened. They are very good honey gatherers but once they start robbing they are very bad. They are good housekeepers and protect themselves very well.

GREY CAUCASIANS: Many beekeepers mistake Caucasians for the black German bees but while they are black in color they have grey bands about their abdomens. They are the gentlest bee that we have but they glue up their entrance and the frames so badly that they are not very popular, and few are kept on this account.