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The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure.

Contents 1 Colony life 2 Development 3 Sources 4 See also 5 References

Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. There are three castes of honey bees: queens, which produce eggs; drones or males, which mate with the queen and have no stinger; and workers, which are all non-reproducing females. The queen lays eggs singly in cells of the comb. Larvae hatch from eggs in three to four days and are fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larva pupates. Queen and drones are larger than workers and require enlarged cells to develop. A colony may typically consist of tens of thousands of individuals.

While some colonies live in hives provided by humans, so-called "wild" colonies (although all honey bees remain wild, even when cultivated and managed by humans) typically prefer to choose a nest site that is clean, dry, protected from the weather, about 20 liters in volume with a 4 to 6 cm² entrance about 3 m above the ground, preferably facing south or south-east.

Queens complete development in 15.5 days, drones in 24 days and workers in 21 days for larvae and pupae stages. Only one queen is usually present in a hive. New virgin queens develop in enlarged cells through differential feeding of royal jelly by workers. When the existing queen ages or dies or the colony becomes very large a new queen is raised by the worker bees. The virgin queen takes one or several nuptial flights and once she is established starts laying eggs in the hive. A fertile queen is able to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs. The unfertilized eggs develop into drones and the fertilized eggs develop into either workers or virgin queens. A queen may live three to five years; drones usually die before winter; and workers may live for a few months.

Type	Egg	Larva	Cell capped	Pupa	Average Developmental Period	Start of Fertility	Body Length	Hatching Weight
Queen	3 days	5 1/2 days	7 1/2 days	8 days	16 days	approx. 23 days	18-22 mm	nearly 200 mg
Worker	3 days	6 days	9 days	12 days	21 days (Range: 18-22days)	N/A	12-15 mm	nearly 100 mg
Drone	3 days	6 1/2 days	10 days	14 1/2 days	24 days	approx. 38 days	15-17 mm	nearly 200 mg

The weight progression of the worker egg, larvae.

Days	Developmental state	Weight	Length	Food source
1	egg	0.132 mg	1.2mm	yolk
2	egg	not listed		yolk
3	egg	0.09 mg		yolk
4	larva	not listed		Royal jelly
5	larva	3.4 mg		Royal jelly
6	larva	33.3 mg		Royal jelly/honey and pollen (bee bread)
7	larva	100.1 mg		honey and pollen (bee bread)
8	larva	134.5 mg		honey and pollen (bee bread)
9	larva	155.2 mg		honey and pollen (bee bread)

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Source: Stone, David M. Overview of Bee Biology University of Illinois Laboratory Highschool; web accessed Oct. 2006

• Development of honeybees bee-info.com, accessed Oct 2005
• Caste in the honey bee Stanley E Flanders, 1960; Insectes Sociaux; web accessed Oct 2006
• Die Kastenentstehung bei der Honigbiene, Apis mellifica L. H. Rembold; DIE NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN 51 Heft 3 (1964) web accessed Oct. 2006

• Bee bole

 

Honey bee types and characteristics (edit)
Queen bees
Worker and drone bees
Worker bee | Laying worker bee | Drone
Lifecycle
Beehive | Honey bee life cycle | Brood Bee learning and communication | Swarming
Subspecies and Races
Apis mellifera mellifera | Africanized bee | Buckfast bee Carniolan honey bee | Italian bee | Western honey bee
Cultivation
Beekeeping | Beeswax | Honey Apiary | Beehive | Langstroth hive | Top-bar hive | Apiology
Lists
Topics in beekeeping | Honey bee races
Diseases of the honey bee

Temporal Polyethism in Bees