Chapter 3

The colony
organization of
honey bees
 Contents of the chapter

3.1. Organization of honey bee colony

3.1.1. The queen
• Queen rearing
• Small scale queen rearing
• Large scale queen rearing
• Queen rearing using emergency cells

3.1.2. The drones

3.1.3. The workers

• Duties of worker bees as nurse and forager bees
• Cleaning, feeding the brood, orientation flight
• Ventilating the hive
• Packing pollen, receiving nectar, elaborating honey, and others.
 3.1 Organization of honey bee colony
• Honey bee colonies usually have
• One queen
• Between 20,000 and 80,000 sterile female worker bees,
• From 300 to 800 males (drones).
• About 5000 eggs
• About 25,000 to 30,000 immature bees (brood)
 Cont’d…, Organization of honey bee colony

• The bees can develop either from fertilized or

unfertilized eggs.
• Drones from unfertilized eggs,
• Queen and workers from fertilized eggs.

• Eggs hatched will be fed with

• royal jelly for the first 3 days,
• Honey and pollen for the next two days
• For the queen it will be royal jelly only.
 The queen
• There is only one queen in the hive.

• She is recognized by the following;

• Long abdomen extending beyond the wings at rest,
• Has a thorax larger than that of worker bees,
• View from the front, she has round head,
• Longer than the workers and drones,
 Cont’d…, the queen
• When we look at her organs and body parts,
• She has a sting used only to fight other queens
• Has no collecting apparatus
• Pollen basket,
• No long proboscis,
• No wax gland
 Cont’d…, the queen
• Five days after the queen emerges from her cell,
• She makes orientation flight for about 5’,
• Next she makes mating flight for about 30’
• About 8-10 drones mate with her
• Well inseminated queen may carry 5, 000,000 eggs
• If not inseminated, she lays unfertilized eggs.
 Cont’d…, the queen
• New queens are produced under 3 circumstances.
• When the bees plan reproductive swarming (2-10 RC)
• When the queen is over aged (1-3 RC)
• When the queen dies at emergencies

• A good queen lays up to 1,500 – 2,000 eggs a day

• She lives up to five years,
• The first two years are best laying times

• A substance secreted by the queen is used as a

means of communication to keep social order.
 Cont’d…, the queen
• This substance is called pheromone, and is
transmitted to others by
• When worker bees clean and feed her
• When she moves across the hive making physical
contacts
• All the bees get a share of the pheromone, and
become aware of here presence.
 Queen rearing
• Queen rearing is required for the following reason;
1. To re-queen the existing colony
2. To make new colonies
3. To improve the genetic quality of the bees

• Queen rearing could be carried out at

• Small scale
• Large scale
• Using emergency queen cells

• Small scale rearing

• This is used to a queen into a new colony of bees. For
this purpose swarming or supersedure bees can be used.
 Cont’d…, queen rearing
• The difference between swarming and supersedure
bees can be understood from the table below.

• It is also possible to induce queen rearing in a colony

not preparing for swarming or supersede the queen.

• The method is as follows;

• This starts from a single brood box containing bees with a
queen.
• Divide the brood into two, and put them into separate
boxes one on top of each other.
 Cont’d…, queen rearing
• The two boxes are connected with a hole which allows
worker bees to move in between boxes, but not the queen.

• The box having the queen will lay eggs, and the other box
without the queen will start rearing its own queen.
 Cont’d…, queen rearing
• Large scale rearing;
• This is a professional operation in which hundreds of
queens are produced at the same time.
• This operation takes into account
• The conditions of the brood, and
• The genetic quality of the brood
 Cont’d…, queen rearing
• Queen rearing using emergency cells
• It is possible that the queen may
• die or
• be killed intentionally, or
• Be removed from the hive

• The absence of the queen will soon be detected by the

workers and they initiate queen replacement.

• In one week time, two to three cells will be capped. Two

days later, the two cells can be taken out by knife.
 The drones
• The drone has the following characteristics;
• It is broader than the worker, and shorter than the queen
• Its abdomen is not pointed.
• Their compound eyes are at the top of the head, twice as
large as that of the worker and the queen.
• Their wings are also the larges of the castes.

• In the colony the drones function are the following;

• It is used for mating
• It may also help warm the hive
• It has no proboscis, glands, pollen basket, sting
 The worker bees
• These are the smallest of the caste.
• Vied from the front, they have triangular shape.
• The wings can reach the end of the abdomen.
• The worker bees females but cannot be fertilized.
• Unlike the drones and the queen, she has
• Longer tongue
• Special sac for carrying water and honey
• Pollen basket for carrying pollen
• A well developed sting
• Royall jelly producing gland in the head
• Salivary gland in the thorax
• Four pairs of wax glands
 Cont’d.., the worker bees

• The life of worker bees can be studied by dividing

it into two.
• Her life within the hive,
• Her life outside the hive

• This division is actually depending on the age of

the worker bees.

• In her earlier life after emerging from the cell, she

does many things inside the hive.

• However, when her age advances, she is pushed

out for various reasons, does field works.
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Worker bees live entirely within the hive in her
earlier life doing various activities such as;
• Preparing brood food
• Building up of the cells with wax

• The following are main tasks performed by house

bees;
• Cleaning
• Feeding the brood
• Orientation flight
• Ventilating the hive
• Packing pollen, receiving nectar, elaborating honey
• Execution and guard duty
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Cleaning;
• In this duty the female bee
• Cleans and caps the larvae
• Cleans the comb cells
• Removing dead intruder or dead bees, objectionable
things

• Anything too large is dragged and pushed out.

• The bigger ones such as dead snakes, wax moths are
encased with propolis.
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Feeding the brood
• She feeds larvae aged more than 3 days with a
mixture of honey (nectar), pollen and water.
• The younger larvae are fed exclusively on bees
milk.
• She also takes a good care of the queen.
• The queen is fed by the workers.
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Orientation flight
• This is a flight taken for navigational purpose.
• In this duty, she explores the location of the hive.

• Ventilating the hive

• This is a duty to control the temp. inside the hive.
• When the temp. rises, they flip their wings,
• And when it’s cold they get together (huddle up).
• The right temp. inside hive is in between 330C and 36
0
C.
• The brood chamber requires constant temp of 35 oC.
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Packing pollen, receiving nectar, elaborating honey
• Pollen is packed to ¾ of the cell.
• Receives nectar from field forages, empties it in a cell, and
exposes it to the air being fanned.
• Ripening time of nectar depends on its moisture content.
 Cont’d.., the worker bees
• Execution and guard duty
• This includes
• Eliminating strange bees
• Killing and driving away sick bees
• Discourage intruder bees from entering the hive
• House bees also guard the hive by inspecting the
incoming bees by their smell
 Social activities outside the colony (outside the hive)
• The activities performed by the field bees include
• Nectar gathering
• Communication about forage
• Water collection

• Nectar gathering
• Nectar is sweet liquid secreted by plants.
• Forager bees collect this from plants and transfer it
to house bees.
• The forager bee flies several times from hive to
forage and vice versa.
 Cont’d…, Social activities outside the colony (outside the hive
• Communication about forage
• Information of the whereabouts of forage is transmitted
both by the house bees and the field bees.

• This is done by dance like movement performed by the

bees, indicating the location and distance.

• Water collection;
• Water collection is one the duties.

• Robber bees
• Every worker bees are thieves.