All bees have three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings, senses of sight ( two compound and three dotted eyes), senses of smell (tentacles), taste (tongue and proboscis), touch and hearing (sensory hairs).
Worker bees have longer and better developed proboscis than queen bees and drones because they need to collect nectar and feed the brood, and for collecting and transferring pollen and propolis, they have special baskets on the back pair of legs. They also have special glands: mammary gland, olfactory gland, wax glands, venom and gonadal glands.
Lifespan of Bees
Bees are workers in the true sense of the word. They lay from fertilized eggs in the same way as the queen bee, but only for the first three days they are fed royal jelly, while later they receive a mixture of honey, pollen, and water, due to which their reproductive organs are stunted. Their cycle from egg stage to hatching is 21 days.
The Lifespan Of Bees Depends On The Intensity Of Work
In spring and the first half of summer the worker bees work intensively and are therefore excessively exhausted and live up to 40 days, while in the second half of summer, due to lack of pasture, they live a little longer, up to 60 days. Bees that latch in late summer and autumn are called winter bees because they, thanks to fatty deposits of proteins, live until next spring and raise the first brood.
Bees bring nectar, pollen, and water to the hive, secrete wax and build honeycombs with it, maintain the optimal climate and temperature of the hive, nurture, feed and heat the brood, polish the honeycomb cells and clean the hive, process flower nectar into honey, protect the hive from enemies, and when necessary replace the old queen bee with a new one.
The Work Of Bees And The Bee Colonies
Bees have organized their lives in the colony so that at each age they perform certain tasks: from 1 to 3 days of age they are cleaners- they clean the cells of the hive in which the queen bee lays eggs, from 3 to 11 days they are feeders- they feed the larvae with honey, and the queen bee with royal jelly, from 12 to 18 days they are builders- they secrete wax and build honeycombs, process nectar and maintain the climate in the hive, from 19 to 21 days they are guards- they protect the hive from enemies, from 22 days until death they are collectors- they collect and bring nectar, pollen, propolis, and water to the hive.
The Importance Of Bees For Nature
Since most agriculturally important crops need bees for pollination, we can say that in fact the greatest benefit of bees is pollination. In their flight from flower to flower, they collect nectar and at the same time transfer pollen from one plant to another on the hairs of the body.
Yields in fruit growing are particularly dependent on bee pollination. Plants pollinated by bees give higher yields and better quality of fruits and seeds, any bees by pollination contribute to the preservation and diversity of plant species.
Drones Live Up To 60 Days And Are Important For The Natural Mood In The Colony
Drones are male members of the bee colony. They begin to hatch in the spring and their number in the colony can reach 1000 at the peak of the season, considering it varies in accordance to the strength of the colony and the amount of drone honeycomb. They live up to 60 days. Apart from fertilizing queen bees, drones in the hive do not have special tasks, although they also heat the brood and are important for natural mood in the colony.
Cycle From The Egg Stage To Hatching
Their cycle from the egg stage to hatching is 24 days, and 10 days after hatching, they reach sexual maturity and fly out the hive. Their significance is also that they pass on hereditary traits to their posterity- in the first generation to the queen bees and bees, and in the second to drones. In late summer and autumn pasture, they throw drones out of the hive so the colony winters without them.
