Bee
Colonies - Nature's Social Network
A bee colony is truly a marvel. It is a delicate
social infrastructure whose complexity rivals the "have your
assistant call my assistant" hierarchical structure of Hollywood
deal-making.
The Queen
In a bee colony, the queen bee is queen because she is the only
female capable of reproduction. Without her, the hive will die.
There is only one queen in every bee colony, with two notable
exceptions. Whenever the colony is preparing to swarm, more than
one queen will be present as neighboring colonies gather to form
a huge mass of bees. Also, when the queen is ready to pass her
crown on to the next queen, a second reproductive female will be
present in the bee colony.
Some bee colonies are queenless. They go happily about their
honey-making work, but when they die at the end of their natural
life spans, the colony dies out, in spite of a few worker bees
who try to lay eggs. A colony with a queen can continue for
several generations.
The Drones
A drone is, quite simply, a ladies man. The purpose of his brief
existence is to mate with the queen. He usually takes his first
flights when he is eight days old, leaving the bee colony to fly
around outside, but the work of gathering pollen is beneath him.
During his entire lifetime, he is fed inside the hive by worker
bees—and he eats three times as much as the workers!
He becomes sexually mature at twelve days of age, and he
perishes instantly upon mating. Oddly enough, he is only
attracted to the queen at heights of over 20 feet, which is why
hives are often built high in trees or along the eaves of a
two-story building. Drones who do not mate are forced out of the
hive when honey stops flowing in cold weather. They starve and
freeze to death outside.
In Queenless colonies, however, drones are welcome to stay as
long as they want, in spite of the stress they place on the
colony because of their voracious appetites. For that reason,
they are though to be the most charismatic of the bees, and the
morale and temperament of bees in a hive with drones is though
to be more pleasant because of them.
The Workers
The lowest rung of the social network of the bee colony is the
worker, yet this is the largest and most important class of bee
of all. All labor related to the hive is performed by workers,
who are sexually undeveloped female bees. They ventilate the
hive, guard the entrance, gather pollen and sap to make honey,
keep the hive clean, feed the drones, care for the queen, build
honeycombs, and guard the entrance to the hive. Workers live for
about six weeks during the summer months, although those whose
lives begin during the fall may live through to the next spring
before they develop fully.
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