Middle School Level
MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL
There are three types of bees in the hive:
Queen, Workers, and Drones
The Queen:
* Will live normally between 1 and 4 years.
* Consumes royal jelly provided by the workers
* Has a non-barbed stinger
* Without a queen, the colony will eventually die
* Develops in 16 days, from egg to emergence from the queen cell.
The Workers:
* Worker are all females.
* Can number between 40-60,000 in a strong hive.
* Performs a multitude of tasks to include: Tending to the queen, feeding larvae, feeding
drones, nectar ripening, producing heat, collecting water, house cleaning guard duty,
field collection of pollen and nectar, to list a few.
* Will die if she stings. Has a barbed stinger that if left behind after stinging.
* Will live 6-8 weeks in the summer, working until her wings give out.
* Will live 4-6 months in winter when not actively working/foraging.
* Develops in 21 days from egg to emergence.
The Drones:
* Sole responsibility is fertilization.
* Leaves hive for 2-3 hours each day.
* Has no stinger
* If the workers stopped feeding them, they would die of starvation.
* Develops in 24 days from egg to hatching to emergence.