A beekeeper, whether a casual hobbyist or a large business producer, can not achieve success unless they completely understand the honeybee’s life cycle.

Life cycle of the honeybee is a rare and fascinating process.

The egg begins the life cycle of the honey bee.

The hive’s queen bee lays an egg in the waxy honeycomb cell designed specifically for the soul purpose of protecting the eggs. When the queen has laid the egg and moved on to lay more (throughout the spring the queen can lay roughly 2000 eggs every day) the egg is attached to the cell by a mucus membrane.

The egg hatches as a larva.

Nurse bees take charge of the young larvae, supplying them with “bee bread”. Bee bread is a mixture of gland secretions and honey. The larvae will then go through 5 separate growth levels.  Within 6 days from hatching, a worker bee caps the cell, cocooning the larvae in its cell. The larvae stays inside the cocoon roughly 8 to 10 days going through its metamorphosis. At the end of these 5 stages, the larvae sheds its external skin emerging from the cocoon as a completely formed young bee.

The length of the life cycle of the honeybee actually depends upon the function of that bee in the hive.

- A queen bee can lives for approximately two years providing that she was able to get herself inseminated with a sufficient amount of sperm throughout her nuptial flight. A healthy queen bee can lay as many as 2000 eggs day by day. She is really in command of getting rid of her sisters and mothers. The queen bee doesn’t have to worry about taking good care of herself, she is continually encircled by an entourage of worker bees who feed her and remove her waste. It’s not uncommon for an elderly queen bee to leave the hive in the spring when the rest of the hive is is preparing to swarm. Experts believe that the queen produces a pheromone that stops the hives workers bees from becoming interested in sex. A queen bee who has not made her nuptial flight is called a virgin queen.

- Drone bees are male bees that live for the sole purpose of impregnating the queen bees during the queens nuptial flight. After mating with a queen the drone dies.

- During the winter months, a worker bee could live as long as a 140 days. During the summer months the worker bee’s life cycle is more realistically around 40 days. This brief summer life span is due in large part to the intensity of their work. The worker bee’s responsibilities are extensive and different.

• Worker bees called nurse bees take care of the young larvae,
• Other workers are dispatched to collect pollen for the production of honey.
• A few workers spend their time capping off honey combs,
• While  other workers are responsible for taking good care of the queen.
• Worker bees are in charge of starving the unwanted drone bees and cleaning the hive.
• There are anywhere from 20,000 to 200 thousand worker bees in a single hive.
• Worker bees are sterile.
• Workers bees are the bees that folks see protecting the hive.

Every bee performs a vital function in the hive and all functions are essential to the survival of the bee hive.

But the real survival of a hive depends on a healthy queen that is continuously producing offspring. If something were to happen to the queen the hive would die. An understanding of the life cycle of the honeybee is vital for the beekeeper.