Life Cycle of the Honey Bee

Honey Bees and Comb

Honey bees are classified into three groups: Queens produce the eggs, Workers are the non-reproducing females and Drones attempt to find a mate with a queen.

Honey Bees hatch from eggs in three to four days. When the honey bee egg hatches in the hexagonal cell the life cycle of the honey bee begins. The eggs are translucent white and resemble a miniature grain of rice. The queen positions the egg in an upright position at the bottom of the cell. The size of the cell the queen selects to lay her egg determines if the egg becomes a drone bee (male) or a worker bee (female).

The queen lays a fertilized female worker bee egg in a smaller cell and an unfertilized male drone bee egg in a larger cell. The female worker bees determine the ratio of female worker bees to male drones by constructing different size cells. They also select which fertilized female eggs will become queens by feeding them a special diet to increase their sexual maturity.

Stages in the Life Cycle of the Honey Bee

• The egg develops into the larval stage.

• Three days after the queen lays her egg, it hatches into a larva. The larvae(plural) resemble small curled up grubs. Tiny at the beginning, the larvae shedd their skin five times.

• After five days the larvae are 1570 times their original size. When this happens, the worker bees seal larvae in the cell by capping. A porous tan material called beeswax is used for this process.

• Once capped, the larvae spin a cocoon around their bodies. This marks the beginning of the pupa stage. During this final stage the bee begins to develop physical features associated with the bee. The eye, legs and wings take shape. The eyes change from pink to purple to black. Fine hairs that cover the bee’s body develop.

• Finally, the pupa develops into the adult after 12 days. Chewing through the wax capping, it now becomes part of the colony.

Each member of a colony develops into an adult over varying durations. Queens become full-grown adults within 16 days, drones develop in under 24 days and female workers require 21 days during larval and pupal development.