Written by: Kunjal Shrestha - 23025, Grade XI
Posted on: 24 September, 2021
Honeybees are social insects. They tend to live in a colony. The lifecycle of bees goes through four stages. They are egg, larva, pupa and adult. The colony of bees consists of three castes: queen bee, worker bee and drones(males).
In the first stage, the queen lays about 3000 pin head sized eggs in a single day. Eggs take three days to hatch into larvae. The larvae resemble a grain of rice. The worker bees feed larvae. The larvae which are destined to develop in queen bees feed on special bee secretion called royal jelly. The larvae will stop eating, spin themself a cocoon and begin to take the form of pupa on about the sixth day. Then pupa is sealed into brood cells by the workers. Then in the pupa stage, the bees begin to develop legs, eyes and wings. The process is called histogenesis. Pupa stages usually last for seven and half days for the queen, twelve days for workers and about fourteen days for drones. In the adult stage, all the bees are fully grown. The typical colony consists of one queen bee. 100 to 500 drone bees and 10,000 to 50,000 worker bees.
Bees are friendly and don't attack or sting without being provoked. But it also depends on the shape of the defensive response of bees, like genetics and their roles in the colony. According to researchers bees can recognize human faces the same way we do. The friendliest bee is the bumblebee. The bumblebee is the largest and gentlest of all the known species of bees. They live mostly alone and don't swarm. We don't have to be afraid of the friendly furry bee although they might sting if they feel threatened.
