Worker, queen
and drone.

Introduction

A beehive is not a little kingdom.

The name “queen” can easily be misleading. There is no ruler sitting on a throne in the hive. There are no orders, no timetable and no single bee with an overview of the whole.

Order arises in a different way: through smells, touch, food, temperature, sounds, dances and the colony’s immediate needs. A young worker responds to brood that needs care. A forager communicates where she has found a rich food source. The queen produces offspring and contributes to social stability through her pheromones. Drones carry the colony’s genetic material out into the surrounding area.

No single bee can carry out all these tasks. Only the division of labour turns many bees into a community capable of surviving over time.

I · The worker

A life that grows with its tasks.

Most of a honey bee colony is made up of workers. They are not interchangeable helpers with just one job. A worker’s place of work changes repeatedly throughout her life: first deep in the brood nest, later around the stores and at the entrance, and finally out in the landscape.

From egg to emergence: around 21 days

It starts with a tiny fertilised egg in a hexagonal cell. After around three days, a larva hatches. It cannot yet do anything for itself and is cared for by nurse bees.

The larva grows quickly and moults several times. Around nine days after the egg is laid, workers seal her cell with a porous wax cap. Behind it, a complete transformation begins: the soft larva first becomes a pupa, and legs, wings, antennae, compound eyes, glands and a sting develop. Around 21 days after the egg is laid, the young worker chews through the cell cap and emerges.

The first days: cleaning, warming, preparing

Her adult life does not begin with a flight into the sunshine. At first, the young bee remains in the sheltered interior. She cleans cells that can then be used again to rear brood or store food. Together with other workers, she also helps keep the brood area at a stable temperature.

A basic principle of the colony is already apparent here: tasks are not rigidly tied to a particular calendar day. Age and physical development suggest a typical sequence, but current needs can shift it. If nurse bees or foragers are missing, for example, other workers respond to fill the gap.

Nurse bee: caring for the next generation

In the next stage of life, glands in the worker’s head become particularly well developed. She now feeds young larvae with brood food. For this, the colony needs pollen in particular as a source of protein, as well as nectar or honey for energy.

Throughout her larval development, a future queen receives especially generous amounts of queen food, usually called royal jelly. The workers are doing more than producing food. Through their care, they influence the developmental path a female larva takes.

Builder bee: wax from her own body

Later, the wax glands on the underside of her abdomen become active. They produce tiny wax scales. The worker picks them up with her legs, works them with her mouthparts and adds them to the comb.

This creates the hexagonal cells in which the colony rears brood, stores pollen and keeps its honey reserves. The comb is a nursery, a larder and a supporting structure all at once.

How nectar becomes honey

Returning foragers carry nectar to the hive in their honey stomachs. There, they pass it to other workers. During this processing, the bees add their own enzymes. At the same time, much of the water must leave the still-watery nectar.

The bees spread the nectar through the cells and circulate air through the hive. Only when the store has ripened sufficiently is it sealed with a thin layer of wax. What we later call honey is, above all, stored energy for the colony, especially for times when little or nothing is flowering outside.

Guard bee: checking the hive entrance

As workers grow older, their work moves towards the outside. At the entrance, guard bees use smell to check who belongs to the colony. They respond to unfamiliar bees and other possible intruders.

The sting is used for defence. A worker does not use it indiscriminately: stinging a human or another mammal can be fatal for her. In that moment, protecting the colony matters more than the individual bee’s continued life.

Forager: out into the landscape

After around three weeks as an adult bee, outside work usually begins. The worker gathers nectar, pollen, water and plant resins, which are used to make propolis in the hive. Before her first long flights, she learns the surroundings of the hive through orientation flights.

Outside, she follows scent, colour, experience and the position of the sun. Once she has found a worthwhile source, she can share the information in the hive. During the waggle dance, the direction and duration of her movements give clues to the direction and distance. The quality of a source also influences how persistently it is promoted.

The dance is not a map in the human sense. It invites other foragers to explore a particular direction, right there in the dark hive on a vertical comb.

When finding a home becomes a shared decision

When a colony becomes strong and space is limited, it can reproduce by swarming. The existing queen leaves the hive with some of the workers. At first, the swarm often gathers in a sheltered spot.

Experienced scout bees search for possible new homes. They assess features including space, shelter and the entrance. Back at the swarm, they dance to promote their discovery. Other bees investigate the suggested sites. Many inspections and responses eventually produce a shared direction.

Summer bees and winter bees

A worker making long foraging flights every day in summer often lives for only a few weeks. The intensive work puts considerable strain on her wings and body.

In late summer and autumn, longer-lived winter bees develop instead. They do not have to move straight into foraging, build up greater reserves in their own bodies and can live for several months. Without them, the colony could neither survive the cold season nor care for new brood in spring.

There is therefore no single life story for a worker. The season and the colony’s condition help determine whether her path will be short and full of flights, or longer and shaped by winter.

III · The drone

An investment in the future of other colonies.

Drones look strikingly large and rounded beside the slimmer workers. They have no sting, gather neither pollen nor nectar and take no part in comb building. This has given rise to the widespread image of a useless freeloader.

Biologically, however, his role is clear: the drone carries his mother’s genetic material beyond the colony and can pass it on to a young queen when mating.

A bee without a father

The drone develops from an unfertilised egg. He therefore has just one set of chromosomes, all inherited from his mother. Put simply, he has a mother but no father.

His larva grows in a slightly larger cell. On the comb, the domed caps of sealed drone brood can usually be distinguished easily from the flatter worker brood. The adult drone emerges around 24 days after the egg is laid.

A body built for flight

After emerging, the drone still needs time to reach sexual maturity. He lives on the colony’s stores and does not gather his own food outside. His large compound eyes, powerful thorax and flight muscles are adapted to finding young queens.

In suitable weather, he flies to areas known as drone congregation areas. Drones from many colonies gather there. Young queens also visit these areas during their mating flights.

Success and death in the same moment

When a drone succeeds in mating, his life ends in the process. His mating organ is torn from his body, and the drone dies shortly afterwards.

For the individual drone, this is a fatal success. For the honey bee population, however, mating means passing on and mixing genetic material. Because a queen mates with several drones, genes from different colonies become part of her future offspring.

When summer ends

Not every drone reaches a queen. As long as there is enough food and mating is possible, drones are cared for within the colony. Their situation changes as food becomes scarcer and the colony prepares for winter.

Workers then often deny them access to the stores and drive them out of the hive. This eviction of the drones may seem harsh, but it reflects the colony’s seasonal economy: there are no young queens to mate with in winter, and the available stores must be enough for the overwintering community.

The drone does not go through a succession of different jobs. His life is focused on a single reproductive task. This specialisation makes him both important and dispensable, depending on the stage the colony has reached in the bee year.