4.0 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEYBEE
The candidate will be:
4.3 able to give an elementary description of the function of the queen, worker and drone in the life of the colony;
NOTES
Worker bees carry out a range of tasks in the colony. Generally they progress through different tasks according to their age, although this is not a hard and fast rule and will depend on the needs of the colony at any particular time. First tasks for newly emerged workers are cell cleaning duties. By 3-4 days, a young bee has developed its hypopharyngeal gland and is able to provide brood food to larvae. At about 6 days another gland has matured that allows the bees to produce wax and the worker can take on the task of comb building. Around 8-9 days old the worker will start to process nectar and pollen received from foragers. Other jobs for older “house” bees are guard duties at the hive entrance, temperature regulation and propolis patching. Although bees will fly on “play” flights from about 6 days old, they will not graduate to foraging until about 18 days old. The workers will then forage for food outside the hive for the rest of their life and will specialise in either pollen or nectar gathering.
The function of the queen in the colony is to mate and then lay eggs to provide a continuing workforce for the colony. She will also pass on her genetic material by producing future queens and drones. The queen does no other tasks in the colony and her food and grooming are attended to by workers.
Drones also pass on genetic material if they are able to mate with a queen and supply her with a life times store of sperm to fertilise eggs. Drones in a colony do no work other than perhaps spreading a sense of well-being. The sense of well-being evaporates in the autumn when they are ejected from the hive by the workers so that they are not a drain on resources over the winter.