a new virgin queen from another colony (when the old queen from that other colony dies or needs to be superseded). Mating occurs outside of the hive in mid-flight, 200 to 300 feet in the air. This location is known as the “Drone Congregation Area,” and it can be a mile or more away from the hive. The drone’s big eyes come in handy for spotting virgin queens who are taking their nuptial flights.
The few drones that do get a chance to mate are in for a sobering surprise. They die after mating! That’s because their sex organ fits something like a key into a lock so they can effectively discharge their sperm into the queen.The queen will mate with several drones during her nuptial flight. After mating with the queen, the drone’s most personal apparatus and a significant part of its internal anatomy is torn away, and it falls to its death, a fact that prompts empathetic groans from the men in my lectures and some unsympathetic cheers from a few women.
Once the weather gets cooler and the mating season comes to a close, the workers do not tolerate having drones around. After all, those fellows have big appetites and would consume a tremendous amount of food during the perilous winter months. So in cooler climates at the end of the nectar-producing season, the worker bees systematically expel the drones from the hive. Drones are literally tossed out the door. For those beekeepers who live in areas that experience cold winters, this is your signal that the beekeeping season is over for the year.
Depending on where you live, the calendar of events for you and your bees varies depending on temperature ranges and the time of year. To read more about the beekeeper’s calendar in your part of the world, see the information and chart in Chapter 9.
The Honey Bee Life Cycle
In regions where winter means “cold,” the hive is virtually dormant. The adult bees are in a tight cluster for warmth, and their queen is snugly safe in the center of it all. But as the days lengthen and the spring season approaches, the bees begin feeding the queen royal jelly. This special food (secreted from the glands near the workers’ mandibles) is rich in protein and stimulates the queen to start laying eggs.
Like butterflies, honey bees develop in four distinct phases: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The total development time varies a bit among the three types of bees, but the basic miraculous process is the same: 16 days for queens, 21 days for worker bees, and 24 days for drones.
Egg
The metamorphosis begins when the queen lays an egg. You should learn how to spot eggs because that is one of the most basic and important skills you need to develop as a beekeeper. It isn’t an easy task because the eggs are mighty tiny (only about 1.7 millimeters long). But finding eggs is one of the surest ways to confirm that your queen is alive and well. It’s a skill you’ll use just about every time you visit your hive.
The queen lays a single egg in each cell that has been cleaned and prepared by the workers to raise new brood (see Figure 2-9). The cell must be spotless, or she moves on to another one.
If she chooses a standard worker-size cell, she releases a fertilized egg into the cell. That egg develops into a worker bee (female). But if she chooses a wider, drone-size cell, the queen releases her egg but not sperm; for example, a nonfertilized egg. That egg develops into a drone bee (male). The workers that build the cells regulate the ratio of female worker bees to male drone bees. They do this by building smaller cells for female worker bees and larger cells for male drone bees.
Having said all that, not all fertilized eggs develop into worker bees. Some can develop into a regal queen bee. But more on that in Chapter 14.
The queen positions the egg in an upright position (standing on end) at the bottom of a cell. That’s why they’re so hard to see. When you look straight down into the cell, you’re looking at the minuscule diameter of the egg, which is only 0.4 millimeter wide. Figure 2-10 shows a microscopic close-up of a single egg.
Courtesy of Howland Blackiston
FIGURE 2-9: Note the rice-like shape of the eggs and how the queen has positioned them standing up in the cells.
Courtesy of Alexander Wild, www.alexanderwild.com
FIGURE 2-10: A single egg.
Courtesy of Howland Blackiston
FIGURE 2-11: These magnifying goggles (used by watchmakers and model makers) are a great beekeeping tool for finding those itty-bitty eggs.
Larva
Three days after the queen lays the egg, it hatches into a larva (the plural is larvae). Healthy larvae are glistening and snowy white and resemble small grubs curled like the letter C in the cells (see Figure 2-12). Tiny at first, the larvae grow quickly, shedding their skin five times. These helpless little creatures have voracious appetites, consuming meals 24 hours a day. The nurse bees first feed the larvae royal jelly, and later they’re weaned to a mixture of honey and pollen (sometimes referred to as bee bread). Within just five days, they are 1,500 times larger than their original size. At this time the worker bees seal the larvae in the cell with a porous capping of tan beeswax. Once sealed in, the larvae spin a cocoon around their bodies.
Courtesy of John Clayton
FIGURE 2-12: Beautiful, pearly white little larvae curled up in their cells.
Pupa
The larva is now officially a pupa (the plural is pupae). Here’s where things really begin to happen but are not visible to the beekeeper The changes are hidden from sight under the wax cappings. But if you could, you’d see that this little creature is quickly beginning to take on the familiar features of an adult bee (see Figure 2-13). The eyes, legs, and wings take shape. Coloration begins with the eyes: first pink, then purple, and then black. Finally, the fine hairs that cover the bee’s body develop. After 12 days (in the case of the