You often see them busily buzzing around your garden or a nearby meadow. Have you ever wondered why they are so diligent?

In this three-part series, we will be exploring and revealing the many amazing things about the honey bee that you might not have known about.

First, let's talk about the hierarchy of the hive.

On the far left is the worker bee. These bees are the female workers that are not capable of reproduction and their only goal is to serve their mother (The Queen) and to provide for the rest of the hive. They start off as foragers and leave the hive to find pollen to make into the bees food. Honey. Then when they get too old to fly around all the time, they start working in the beehive. They make the honey, guard the honey, and care for the brood (Larvae).

Next, the queen.

See that bigger blacker one in the middle? That is Her Royal Highness. She is the leader of the whole hive and produces all of the 10,000 to 60,000 workers! I recently was amazed when I learned how the queen bees are made.

When a honey bee is in its brood form, it is fed honey. If the queen happens to die and the hive is in need of a new queen, the hive just makes a new one! One remaining larva is chosen and is fed, instead of honey, something that we call "Royal Jelly". Royal Jelly is a mixture of the purest of honey, many proteins, and many other vitamins and minerals that are not in the normal honey. This special superfood is given to one larva and when that larvae reaches adulthood, it is healthy and has the nutrients required to procreate.

Finally, the drones.

This is a drone. This is the only male bee in the hive. They are really nothing special...

All the drones do is sit around and consume resources. Their only purpose is to eat, mate, and then shortly after mating they die.

That is just a glimpse into the life in the hive. Don't forget to read next weeks post where we will learn even more about the amazing life of the Honey Bee.

Thanks for reading,

~Bradon (Bug Boy)

Written by Bradon Coy on 11/9/18

Citations:

Ivan Marjanovic/Shutterstock

Satyanarayana, Megha. “Glyphosate Disrupts Honey Bee Gut Bacteria.” CEN RSS, American Chemical Society, 15 Oct. 2018, cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/Glyphosate-disrupts-honey-bee-gut/96/web/2018/09.