Lots of bee's producing honey right? Well yes, that is true but the work structure of a beehive is like a well-oiled machine. The hive consists of 3 different types of bees. The queen, the worker and the drone. Below we will give you some quick facts about each one.
The queen – A beehive can consist of up to 80,000 bee's but there can only be one queen and she is the mother of most if not all the bee's that 'belong' to that particular hive. She can lay up to 1,500 eggs during the busy season and can live for up to 7 years.
The worker – As the name suggest, these ladies are the ones doing most, if not all of the work. All worker bee's are females but what separates them from the queen is they can't produce fertilized eggs. Their job is to forage for pollen and nectar, feed larvae, take care of the queen and the drones as well as protect (sting) and preserve the hive. If for some reason there is no queen present, the workers will lay unfertilized eggs that become male drones. Unfortunately, there is no retirement fund for working bee's and they usually don͛t live longer than 6 weeks.
The drone – These guys have one job and one job only, they are there to fertilize new queens. They usually mate outdoors- in midair! And once the fun is over they die soon after. They are also the first ones to get kicked out of the beehive if it's low on food during the cooler seasons! Which type of bee do you think you would be?
