The life cycle of the honey bee
Watch a cell in the comb day by day as an egg becomes a larva, a pupa and an adult bee. Compare how long a queen, a worker and a drone take.
Core concept
A honey bee goes through complete metamorphosis: egg, larva, pupa and adult; a queen comes out after 16 days, a worker after 21 and a drone after 24, and each type has its own work in the colony
Topic: Honey bee
A honey bee colony has three types of bee. The queen is the only female that lays eggs, up to 1500 a day. Workers are sterile females: they clean the comb, feed the young, make wax and honey, guard the hive and collect nectar and pollen. Drones are the males; their only job is to mate with a new queen. A bee's body has three parts: the head (with antennae, compound eyes and mouthparts), the thorax (with two pairs of wings and three pairs of legs, the back legs carrying pollen baskets) and the abdomen (with a sting in the queen and workers). The queen lays one egg in each wax cell: The tiny building block that every living thing is made of. All key words. It hatches into a larva, which is fed and grows; then the cell is capped with wax and the larva becomes a pupa; finally an adult bee bites its way out. This is complete metamorphosis. Nepal has native bees such as Apis cerana and the giant Himalayan cliff bee, and many farmers keep bees for honey.
What you will learn
- Name the three types of honey bee and the work of each.
- Describe the external structure of a worker bee.
- Describe the four stages of the life cycle of a honey bee.
- Compare how long a queen, a worker and a drone take to develop.
Before you start
- Know what metamorphosis means.
Materials
- A piece of empty honeycomb, pictures of bees at each stage
Equipment
- A hand lens
Procedure
- Follow a worker's cell: record it as an egg, a larva, a pupa and an adult.
- On day 16, record a queen, a worker and a drone.
- Record a drone on day 24.
How this simulation is simplified
- Every bee is an egg for 3 days. A queen is a larva for 5 days, a worker for 6 and a drone for 7.
- A queen comes out on day 16, a worker on day 21 and a drone on day 24 (the times vary a little with warmth).