This document provides an overview of colony organization and the life cycle of honey bees. It discusses the three main types of bees in a colony - the queen, workers, and drones. The queen lays eggs and is fed by worker bees. Workers perform all tasks in the colony, including feeding larvae, hive maintenance, and foraging. Drones do not work, and their sole purpose is to mate with virgin queens. The life cycle begins with an egg laid by the queen, which hatches into a larva and then a pupa before emerging as an adult bee. Stages have different durations for each caste.

1. WELCOME

2. TOPIC – COLONY ORGANIZATION
AND
LIFE CYCLE OF HONEY BEE.
COURSE TITLE - APICULTURE
COURSE CODE - HPI (111 )
CREDIT HOUR - ( 0+1 )

3.  COLONY ORGANIZATION:
 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.

4. QUEEN
WORKER
DRONE

5.  QUEEN :
 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.

6.  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

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

8.  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.

9.  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.
 The pheromones in queen substance
stimulate brood rearing, comb building,
hoarding and foraging in a colony and thus
play important role in normal working of a
colony.

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

11.  DUTIES OF WORKERS INCLUDE :
I. Cleaning of the hive,
II. feeding of 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.

12.  DIFFERENTJOBSDEPENDING ON AGE
 2 days
 3-10 days
 15-20 days
 21-35 days

13.  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

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

15.  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

16.  LIFE CYCLE :
 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

17.  DEVELOPMENT :
 First the life cycle starts out The Queen
laying the eggs into each cell of the hive.

18.  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.

19.  After it grows into the larva it
becomes a pupa. The drone
bee covers each larva with cells.
Close upEGG

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

21.  Duration of life stages of different castes of
honey bee varies which is given in the table :-
Caste Egg period Larval Stage Pupal Stage Total
(days) (days) (days) (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

22.  LIFE CYCLE OF HONEY BEES:

23.  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 .

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