"In general, a hive is made up of three types: queen bees, worker bees, and drones.

First, let's talk about the queen bee.

The queen bee is the only female bee in a colony with fully developed reproductive organs.

Formed from a fertilized egg in the king's platform, its body is a quarter or even twice as long as that of a worker bee.

The abdomen is long conical, about three-quarters of the body length, the wings are shorter, covering only half of the abdomen, and the stinger is not like that of worker bees, with only a slight barb, and is only used when fighting competing queens.

Although the movement seems slow and unhurried, it is very agile when necessary.

The function of the queen bee is to lay eggs.

A good queen bee can lay about 1,500 eggs per day and night during the egg-laying period.

The quality of the queen bee and its ability to lay eggs play a decisive role in the strength of the colony and its genetic traits.

Only by breeding a good and robust queen bee can the bee colony maintain a strong colony and high production performance.

There is usually only one queen bee in a colony's nest, and if there is a cap in the colony, the bees will divide into groups.

When two queens appear, they will fight each other until there is only one left, but when it is natural to alternate, the old queen bee may also live in the same nest as the new queen for a period of time.

You can't have a queen bee in a colony.

Guardian bees know whether the queen bee in their colony exists by passing the queen bee substance secreted by the queen bee in the hive.

If the queen bee is not there, after dozens of minutes, the work order in the colony will be seriously affected, and the worker bees will appear anxious.

At this time, as long as the colony that has lost its queen bee is lured with a queen bee or a mature queen stage, the restless condition of the colony will soon change and normal activities will resume.

The queen bee is especially cared for by worker bees throughout her life.

Especially during the spawning period, they receive special care.

Usually, it is surrounded by guard bees made up of juvenile worker bees.

The guard bees constantly touch the queen with their antennae to lick it and remove its excrement.

Worker bees feed the queen bee with royal jelly, and without the worker bee, the queen bee's egg-laying function cannot be fulfilled.

After the queen bee stopped laying eggs, the worker bees took care of it poorly and no longer fed the queen with royal jelly.

At this time, the queen bee had to go to the honey storage nest to collect the honey herself.

The lifespan of a queen bee is generally 3~5 years, and the longest can reach 8~9 years.

The second is the worker bees.

Worker bees are the smallest in a colony, but they are the most numerous!

They develop from fertilized eggs in worker hives.

However, the reproductive organs are not fully developed, its ovaries are small, and they generally do not lay eggs, except for the anomaly of the absence of a queen bee in the colony.

Worker bees are small, dark brown in size, and densely hairy with gray-yellow hairs on the head, thorax, and back.

The head is slightly triangular, with a pair of compound eyes, three single eyes, a pair of antennae, and a knee-like curve;

The mouthparts are well developed and suitable for chewing and sucking;

There are three pairs of feet, and there are pollen collection structures in the femoral joints, tibial joints, and tarsal joints.

abdomen conical, dorsal yellowish-brown, 1~4 segments with black links, sharp ends, venomous glands, stings;

There are four pairs of wax plates on the abdomen, and there are wax glands inside, secreting wax.

They have all the organs to perform various tasks required for the development of the colony, including pollen baskets, odor glands, etc., so the worker bees are responsible for all the work inside and outside the colony.

Its functions vary with age.

This phenomenon is called the phenomenon of different ages and different jobs.

The main job of worker bees under 3 days of age is to clean the nest for the queen to lay eggs;

In the next two weeks, with the development of glands such as tongue glands (vegetative glands, royal jelly glands), wax glands, and poison glands, they secrete royal jelly to feed the queen bee.

At the same time, royal hormin (queen bee substance, genus pheromone) is obtained from the queen bee to feed the larvae, and larval pulp (royal jelly plus honey and bee food) is prepared to feed the large larvae.

It is also responsible for regulating the temperature and humidity in the hive, circulating the air in the hive, secreting beeswax, building the nest spleen, collecting gum to coat the gaps in the hive, receiving nectar to make honey, guarding the hive, etc.

During the peak breeding period of the colony, especially before the bees are divided, the worker bees also feed the drones.

With the change of position and the increase of age, they move from the center of the hive to the outside of the hive.

Worker bees around 3 weeks old begin to work outside the nest, collecting nectar, pollen, water, propolis, etc., or scouting the nectar source.

However, their functions can be changed according to changes in environmental conditions and the needs of bee colonies, and there is a great deal of plasticity.

The lifespan of worker bees is 4~6 weeks in summer and 3~6 months in winter. The length of its life has a lot to do with the intensity of work and the strength of the bee colony.

During the production season, worker bees have the shortest lifespan, and in winter and early spring, the worker bees that have survived the winter in the colony gradually die, and in late spring, when the number of new worker bees produced exceeds the number of old worker bees that have died, the colony begins to grow. In the breeding season, the number of worker bees in a strong colony can reach 50,000~60,000.

Finally, a word about drones.

A drone develops from an unfertilized egg in a drone hive and is the male individual of a colony.

It has a stout physique, an almost rounded head and tail, large, prominent compound eyes, broad wings, and stout feet, allowing it to spot and chase queen bees with agility.

The breed and physique of drones, the number and activity ability of drones have a direct impact on the genetic traits and quality of the offspring of new bee colonies.

Drones do not have stings, poison sacs, pollen baskets, and wax-secreting organs.

He has a short tongue that feeds from the honey storage room in the nest, and has no working skills, and his only task is to mate with the virgin queen full-time.

Most drones start to fly within 7~10 days of age, become sexually mature around 8~14 days of age, and 12~20 days of age is the mating age.

The drone flies and the queen bee mates, generally on a sunny day at 1~5 o'clock in the afternoon, after mating with the queen, because the reproductive organs remain in the female abdomen soon after death.

The drone's consumption of feed is large, and the larval stage is 1~2 times that of the worker bee;

Adult bees consume more feed, and eat honey on the honeycomb on weekdays, and during the breeding season, they will be fed pollen, bee food and other nutritious feed by worker bees.

Drones can live for several months, but most die young. When the autumn in the north and the summer in the south are scarce, the worker bees will not let the drones eat the stored honey in the colony of the queen bee, and will be expelled from the nest by the worker bees.

Because drones cannot feed or defend themselves, they freeze and starve to death soon after leaving the colony.

Therefore, a perfect hive is a microcosm of a society, with different forms and functions, division of labor, cooperation, and interdependence, just like a big family or even a country in human society.

Now let's go back and talk about this hive you built, is there a queen bee?

How many worker bees are there?

Are there drones?

Even the three most basic members that make up a hive are not complete, can it be considered a hive?

You see, these dozen or so people are getting in and out of the hive room because there is no queen bee, and they have lost their work order and appear anxious and uneasy—huh!

Li Yan, who had been talking for a long time, was about to end his words, when he suddenly found that something was wrong, and in surprise, he stepped forward and walked under the linden tree, carefully observed the bees entering and leaving the hive for a while, and then exclaimed: "This can't be!"

Everyone didn't know what Li Yan had discovered, and when they saw that his face was full of horror like he had bumped into a ghost in broad daylight, they all asked in unison, "What's wrong?"

Li Yan pointed to the hive and stammered, "Look, these bees coming in and out are all queen bees! Oh my God, what's going on!"