Bees

What role does the queen bee play? Each bee colony has only one queen, which develops from a normal bee larva owing to the fact that it is nourished exclusively with royal jelly, the royal superfood. As a result, the queen is three times the size of a worker bee. She has a life expectancy of three to five years, whereas a normal bee only lives for around 28 days. Only the queen has fully developed ovaries, which enable her to lay up to 5,000 eggs per day. During her single nuptial flight, she mates with around 20 drones, and the stored sperm is sufficient for her entire life.

What are the tasks of worker bees? In summer, worker bees usually live for four to six weeks, while those that hatch just before winter live for several months. In the course of their short lives, the bees initially have to perform tasks such as cleaning brood cells, building honeycombs and guarding the entrance hole. In the second half of their lives, they leave the hive in order to collect nectar, honeydew and pollen in the wild.

What do the drones do? Drones develop from unfertilised eggs and are slightly larger than worker bees. They are unable to feed themselves and are fed by worker bees. The drones have only one task: to mate with the queen. After the mating act, they are mercilessly thrown out of the hive during the “drone eviction” and then die.

How do bees communicate with one another? Communication between bees sometimes takes the form of danced information. When a bee tells its fellow bees about a nectar source, it dances. The stronger and more expressive the dance, the more promising the source is. Furthermore, other bees recognise the scent of the pollen on the dancer and set off in search of the corresponding flowers. For more distant foraging areas, the waggle dance is used, which indicates the direction of flight in relation to the sun. The slower the bee dances, the further away the nectar source is.