The Lifecycle of Honey Bees
THE QUEEN LAYS EGGS
Bees begin as eggs that are laid by the queen bee. The queen lays one egg in each cell. A healthy queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs in one day!
The worker bees tell her which cells are the best prepared for her eggs. The cell must be perfect or she won’t lay there. It’s the size of the cell that determines the type of egg she will lay.
If the worker bees have prepared a worker sized cell she will lay a fertilized egg, and it will produce a female worker. When the worker bees prepare a larger cell, the queen lays an unfertilized egg. Those cells produce male drones.
While the queen is the one that lays each type of egg, it’s the worker bees that make the determination of how many worker and drone cells there will be.
Learn more about the three types of honey bees here.
THE EGG HATCHES (LARVA STAGE)
In three days the honey bee egg hatches into a larva. At that point, it’s primary function is to eat and grow. While it’s developing, these larvae will receive thousands of visits from nurse bees that will deliver food.
At first, the nurse bees feed the larvae royal jelly then they are weaned to a mix of honey and pollen, referred to as bee bread. Within just five days, the larva grows to more than 1,500 times its original size!
Wanna know how the queen bee is made? Click here to find out!
THE CELL IS CAPPEDÂ
On the fifth day, the worker bees seal the cell with a porous cap of tan beeswax. The larva surrounds itself with a cocoon inside the cell, much like a butterfly.
THE PUPA STAGE
Now, the larva is officially a pupa and this is when the transformation really begins to happen. The bee begins to take on its features, growing eyes, legs, and wings. Finally, the fine hairs that cover the bee’s body develop.
The process takes about 12 days.
HERE COMES BABY BEE!
Though it looks as though the bee is sort of ‘being born’ from the cell, it’s actually an adult honey bee at that point.
Once the pupa phase is complete, the adult bee chews through the wax capping to join the colony. Fascinating!
