How Does a Honey Bee Live?
The bee lives in swarms of from 10,000 to 50,000 in one house. In the wild state the house or hive is located in a hollow tree generally. These swarms contain three classes of bees, the perfect females or queen bees, the males or drones, and the imperfectly developed females, or working bees. In each hive or swarm there is only one perfect female or queen whose sole mission is to propagate the species. The queen is much larger than the other bees. When she dies a young working bee three days old is selected as the new queen. Her cell is enlarged by breaking down the partitions, her food is changed to “royal jelly or paste” and she grows into a queen bee. The queen lays 2,000 eggs per day. The drones do not work and after performing their duty as males are killed by the working bees. The female bees do the work of gathering the honey. They collect the honey from the flowers, they build the wax cells, and feed the young bees. When a colony becomes overstocked, a new colony is sent out to establish a new hive under the direction of a queen bee.