Honey bees live in colonies with one queen, thousands of workers, and hundreds of drones. The queen's role is to lay eggs that become either workers or drones. Workers perform all tasks in the colony including feeding larvae, building comb, collecting nectar and pollen. Drones do not work and their sole function is to mate with virgin queens. The life cycle begins with the queen laying an egg, which hatches into a larva and then becomes a pupa before emerging as an adult bee. The development time varies by caste with queens developing the quickest and drones taking the longest.

1. LIFE CYCLE OF HONEY BEE
Dr. Nirbhay Sudhir Pimple
Department of Zoology
Abasaheb Garware College

2.  C
O
L
O
N
YO
R
G
A
N
I
Z
A
T
I
O
N:
 Honey bees are social insects and live in colonies.
 A normal colony, during active season is composed
of 3 kinds of individuals, which vary in size :
 One queen.
 Thousands of workers (10000 to 30000 or even
more) .
 Few hundreds of drones.
 In addition, each colony has different
developmental stages viz eggs, larvae and pupae
which are collectively known as Brood.

3. QUEEN
WORKER
DRONE

4.  Q
U
E
E
N
:
 Only one queen is found in a colony.
 She is the mother of the whole colony
producing workers and drones and is the
only perfectly developed female member
of the colony.
 Her function is to lay eggs.
 She does not have motherly instinct or
ability to feed the brood.
 She is fed lavishly by a large number of
nurse bees with highly nutritious food
known as royal jelly.

5.  A queen can lay 1500-2000 eggs per day.
 A laying queen is the longest bee in the
colony.
 It has larger thorax than worker and her
abdomen gets greatly distended during
egg laying.
 The queen lays both fertilized and
unfertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs produce
workers (also queens) and unfertilized
eggs produce drones

6. DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFERENT CASTES OF HONEY
BEES BASED ON QUALITY AND QUANTITYOF FOOD AND
WHETHER FERTILIZED OR UNFERTILIZED

7.  A good mated queen may work satisfactorily for 2 or
more years, although queens can live eight years or
longer.
 Queen releases queen substance (pheromone)
which helps in the colony organization. It acts as
worker attractant and inhibits ovary development in
worker bees as well as raising new queen.
 Absence of queen pheromone is detected after
about 30 minutes of queen loss and colony may start
raising new queen.

8.  The virgin queen mates with a number of
drones (5-7) within 5-10 days of emergence in
the air (not inside the hive) and spermatozoa
are stored in spermatheca.
 Stored sperms are utilized to fertilize eggs
throughout her life till exhausted.
stimulate brood rearing, comb
 The pheromones in queen substance
building,
hoarding and foraging in a colony and thus
play important role in normal working of a
colony.

9.  W
O
R
K
ER
:
 Workers are sterile females.
 They are unable to mate though they may
start egg laying if a colony remains queen less
for long period.(Parthnogenesis)
 The workers perform all the useful work in the
colony.
 A worker has an average life of only 40-
50 days during (active
period) and her life may extend up to 6 months
during off season.

10.  DUT
I
E
SO
FW
O
R
K
E
R
S
INCLUDE:
I. Cleaning of the hive,
II. feeding the larvae,
III. raising queen cells when required,
IV. ventilate hive,
V. guard the hive entrances,
VI. secrete bees wax,
VII. construct the combs,
VIII. collect the nectar and convert it into honey
IX. collection of pollen, water and propolis,
X. produce a predigested food of royal jelly for feeding
queens and young larvae and scouting for a new nest site
during swarming.
XI. The workers also feed the drones but when not needed,
they are thrown out of hive.

11.  D
I
F
F
E
R
E
N
TJ
O
B
S D
E
P
E
N
D
I
N
GON A
G
E
2 days
3-10 days
15-20 days
21-35 days

12.  Nurse bees
1 - 12 days
Self-grooming
Cell cleaning
Feeding brood
 House Bees
10-20 days old
Comb building
House cleaning
Accepting nectar and
pollen from foragers
Undertakers
Hive guarding
Climate control

13.  Field Bees
 From about 20 days until
death (30-45 days)
 Collect
Nectar
Pollen
Water
Plant resins (propolis)

14.  DRONE :
 Drones neither perform any duty inside the
hive nor do they collect food from flowers.
 Each drone is fed by 3 to 4 worker bees.
 A colony rears and tolerates the drones only
during breeding season when new queens are
being produced and are later driven out of the
colony to die of starvation.
 The sole function of a drone is to mate once
which costs him his life.
 Maximum life of drone honey bee in

15.  LIFEC
Y
C
L
E:
 Queen deposits egg at the base of cell and
fastens with mucilaginous secretion..
 After 3 days egg hatches and workers provide
pearly white food in which “C” shaped larva
floats.
 Cell is sealed when larva is fully grown. In the
sealed cell it turns into pupa from which adult
emerges.
 Larva sheds skin five times during development.
The sealed cells containing worker and drone
brood and honey can be differentiated on the
basis of appearance

16.  D
E
V
E
L
O
P
M
E
N
T:
 First the life cycle starts out The Queen
laying the eggs into each cell of the hive.

17.  Next the eggs grow into a larva.
 After it grows into the larva it
becomes a pupa . The drone
bee covers each larva with cells.

18. After it grows into the larva it
becomes a pupa. The drone
bee covers each larva with cells.
Close up
EGG

19. Larvae and eggs
Bee pupae
Queen cells with
larvae and royal jelly

20.  Duration of life stages of different castes of
honey bee varies which is given in the table :-
Caste Eggperiod
(days)
LarvalStage
(days)
PupalStage
(days)
Total
(days)
Queen 1-3 4-9 10-15 16
Worker 1-3 4-9 10-20 21
Drone 1-3 4-9 10-23 24

21.  LIFEC
Y
C
L
EO
FH
O
N
E
YB
E
E
S
:

22.  In a comb, workers rear brood in the central
part where temperature can easily be
maintained and honey is stored in the upper
and peripheral part .
 Pollen is stored around brood area so that it
is easily available for rearing brood .
 Drone brood area can be differentiated from
worker brood as the sealed brood cells in the
former case are raised .

23. T
H
A
N
KY
O
U