Honeybee Facts

  • Honeybees are not native to the United States.  They are European in origin.  The early settlers brought them to North America.
  • Honeybees are not aggressive by nature.  They will not sting unless protecting their hive from an intruder or are unduly provoked.
  • Honeybees represent a highly organized society.  Various bees have very specific roles during their lifetime: e.g., nurses, guards, grocers, housekeepers, construction workers, royal attendants, undertakers, foragers, etc.
  • The queen bee can live for several years.  Worker bees live for six weeks during the busy summer, and for four to nine months during the winter months.
  • The practice of honey collection and beekeeping dates back to the Stone Age, as evidenced by cave paintings.
  • The honeybee hive is perennial.  Although quite inactive during the winter, the honeybee survives the winter months by clustering for warmth.  By self-regulating the internal temperature of the cluster, the bees maintain 93 degrees Fahrenheit in the center of the winter cluster, regardless of the outside temperature.
Three Castes of Honeybee

  • Queen Bee - There is only one queen per hive.  The queen is the only bee with fully developed ovaries.  A queen bee can live for three to five years.  The queen mates only once with several male (drone) bees, and will remain fertile for life.  She lays up to 2000 eggs per day.  Fertilized eggs become female (worker bees) and unfertilized eggs become male (drone bees).  When she dies, or becomes unproductive, the other bees will "make" a new queen by selecting a young larva and feeding it a diet of "royal jelly".  For queen bees, the process of going from egg to emergence takes 16 days.
  • Worker Bee - All worker bees are female, but they are not able to reproduce.  Worker bees live for four to nine months during the winter season, but only six weeks during the busy summer months. They literally work themselves to death.  Nearly all of the bees in a hive are worker bees.  A hive consists of 20,000 to 30,000 bees in the winter, and more than 60,000 to 80,000 bees in the summer.  The worker bees sequentially take on a series of specific chores during their lifetime: housekeeper; nursemaid; construction worker; grocer; undertaker; guard; and finally, after 21 days they become a forager collecting pollen and nectar.  For worker bees, the process of going from egg to emergence takes 21 days.  The worker bee has a barbed stinger that results in her death following stinging.  Therefore, she can only sting once.
  • Drone Bee - These male bees are kept on standby during the summer for mating with a virgin queen.  Because the drone has a barbed sex organ, mating is followed by death of the drone.  There are only 300 to 3,000 drones in a hive.  The drone does not have a stinger.  Because they are of no use in the winter (they don't do any work - they just eat), drones are expelled from the hive in the autumn.