To Bee or What to Bee - courtesy of our friends at Tweehive

To Bee or What to Bee - courtesy of our friends at Tweehive

Last Updated (Sunday, 13 September 2009 14:29) Written by Tweehive Wednesday, 12 August 2009 17:30

To Bee or What to Bee - courtesy of our friends at Tweehive

1. Larvae - don't do much but lie around, get fed and grow.

2. Drones - If the idea of doing nothing but having sex with the queen is your idea of a good life, you may have what it takes to be a drone.

3. Workers - However, if you'd like a little more to tweet about than sleeping, eating and having sex, you should adopt the role of a worker bee. Over the course of their lives worker bees participate in different jobs, depending on their age.

With the exception of the queen, who can live up to five years, the average bee lives around 40 days during the summer. Depending upon which stage of it's life it is at, it will fulfill different tasks, as follows

Cell Cleaning (Day 1-2)

The first thing a bee does when it is born is tidy up after itself, as brood cells must be cleaned before they are next used. The queen comes round and inspects the cells and rejects any she doesn't consider up to scratch.

Nurse Bee (Day 3 - 11)

Nurse bees feed the worker larvae jelly, secreted from the same glands that produce royal jelly.

Advanced Nurse Bees (Day 6 - 11)

Feed royal jelly to the queen larva while drones receive worker jelly for 1 to 3 days at which time they are moved to honey and pollen.

Wax Production (Day 12 - 17)

Wax Bees build cells from wax, repair old cells, and store nectar and pollen brought in by other workers. Early in the worker's career she will exude wax from the space between several of her abdominal segments. Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four ventral segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction.

Other Worker Activities

Honey Sealing

Mature honey, sufficiently dried, is sealed tightly with wax to prevent absorption of moisture from the air by workers deputised to do same.

Drone Feeding

Drones do not feed themselves, they are fed by workers.

Queen Attendants

The attendants or retinue groom and feed the queen. They also collect QMP (Queen Mandibular Pheremone) from the queen and share it with the bees around them who also share it by spreading its effects throughout the hive.

Honeycomb Building

Workers will take wax from wax producing workers and build the comb with it.

Pollen Packing

Pollen brought back into the hive for feeding the brood is also stored. It must be packed firmly into comb cells and mixed with a small amount of honey so that it will not spoil. Unlike honey, which does not support bacterial life, stored pollen will become rancid.

Rancidification

Rancidification is the decomposition of fats, oils and other lipids by hydrolysis or oxidation, or both. Hydrolysis will split fatty acid chains away from the glycerol backbone in glycerides....without proper care.

Propolizing

The walls of the hive will be covered with a thin coating of propolis, a resinous mixture that honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the bee hive. In combination with enzymes added by the worker this will have antibacterial and antifungal properties. Propolis is also used to close off excessive ventilation and entrances.

Mortuary Bees

Dead bees and failed larvae must be removed the hive to prevent disease and allow cells to be reused. They will be carried some distance from the hive by mortuary bees.

Fanning Bees

Worker bees fan the hive, cooling it with evaporated water brought by water carriers. They direct airflow into the hive or out of the hive depending on need.

Guard Bees (Days 18 - 21)

Protect the entrance of the hive from enemies.

Soldier Bees

Soldiers hang around near the entrance and attack invaders. they work in concert with entrance guards.

Entrance Guard Bees

These inspect incoming bees to ensure that they are bringing in food and have the correct hive odour. Other bees will be rejected or attacked with soldier bees.

Outside Guard Bees

Outer guards may take short flights around the outside of the hive in response to disturbances.

Water Carriers

When a hvie is in danger of overheating these bees will obtain water, usually from within a short distance from the hive and bring it back to spread on the backs of fanning bees. The worker bee has a crop (a thin walled expanded portion of the alimentary tract, used for storage of food prior to digestion that is found in many animals, including gastropods, earthworms, leeches, insects, and birds) separate from the nectar crop for this purpose.

Foraging Bees (Days 22 -2 42)

The forager and scout bees travel (up to 1.5 miles) to a nectar source, namely a flowering plant that produces nectar as part of it's reproductive strategy, or a pollen source, or to collect propolis, a resinous mixture that honey bees collect form tree buds, sap flows or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealent for unwanted opens paces in the beehive.

(adapted from Wikipedia and other sources, and only to be taken as a loose guide. If you want more information, just look around a bit more :)