Honey bees are often thought of as a single entity. “The Hive” a collective of thousands of individual bees going about their daily specialized tasks in support of the greater colony.
No individual bee can survive in isolation. The roles that each individual bee performs is essential to the survival of the hive and includes nursing, capping cells, housekeeping, storing food, guard duty and foraging to name a few.
In this way each individual bee within the colony forms an unbreakable bond with other members. Because of this we have terms like “The Hive”, “Hive Mind” and “Super Organism”. Let’s take a peak at what makes them tick.
Although the Queen is the only one of her kind in the hive her role is not as we imagine. The life of a Queen is not exactly Royal despite many beekeepers especially amateurs referring to her as HRH (Her Royal Highness). The newly emerged Queen, after spending approximately 16 days pupating, is attended to by workers or nurse bees for the rest of her life. She will take a mating flight at around 24 – 30 days old before returning to the hive to spend the next few years laying eggs. That is her job. To ensure there are a constant supply of new bees emerging within the hive.
Worker bees on the other hand go through a type of apprenticeship from the day they emerge from their cells as young adults. It is this apprenticeship we will now focus on.
The day of emergence the young adult bee’s first task is to clean the cell from which she emerged to make room for the queen to lay a fresh egg. Much like telling a teenager to clean their room the young bee gets things in tip top order for the next generation. After doing this the young bee will then eat bee bread made, a mixture of pollen, honey and glandular juices and enzymes designed to aid the young bees development. High in protein the bee bread is also used to produce royal jelly.
This young bee now turns its attention to capping cells. Once the Queen has laid an egg in an empty cell nurse bees around 6 days old will feed the egg and resulting larvae for the first 3-4 days on royal jelly that they excrete from a gland in the head and bee bread. When sufficiently developed the younger nurse bees will cap the cell ready for the pupal stage of development.
As the apprenticeship continues the young bee is now 6 – 9 days old and is tending to the needs of the queen as well as capping and cleaning of cells. Nurse bees finish their apprenticeship by looking after brood (developing larvae) and capping cells. This job requires the bees to maintain an effective and constant temperature of 35 degrees within the hive and particularly around the developing brood. Too hot or too cold and the developing bees will die. The bees will form a cluster in the brood areas at night to maintain temperatures.
Some nurse bees will be receiving nector & pollen from returning foragers at around 9-16 days of age. Others will be taking care of housekeeping by removing debris and managing hive pests. Others will be packing pollen and making bee bread for use by the hive.
Around Day 12 – 22 some bees will turn their attention to building wax comb for use as brood chambers and food storage. The pantry of the hive.
About the same time, orientation flights occur. This is the first tiime the bees have ventured out of the hive. They will fly around the entrance of the hive in a back and forth motion to learn where the hive is located in relation to the sun and other landmarks. This process allows the bees to begin the final phase of their lives. Foraging.
A few will stay at the entrance of the hive and become guard bees. Guarding the hive is not unlike the role of security at a large event. They will check the identity of all bees wishing to enter the hive. They will also protect the hive from robber bees from other colonies or any pests that attempt to enter. Guard bees are the night club bouncers of the hive.
Foragers will firstly collect nectar, pollen. resins from nearby plants and trees and then water and return it to the hive for processing. Resin is used by the bees to make a gluey substance called propolis. This glue is used to seal up drafty areas, strengthen cell walls and even embalm small animals that may have died inside the hive and are too big for the bees to remove.
The changing roles in the hive are not decided upon by the Queen, nor do they have a set timetable. The progress from one role to another is not well defined, but is varied from bee to bee and is based on the particular needs of the hive at that time.
The dramatic shift in worker behaviour does correlate with a change in protein levels within the body of the bee. A substance called Vitellogenin found in insect blood makes up 30 – 50 % of the proteins in the bee. This protein is used in the production of royal jelly and maintaining immune system function. Nurse bees moving to foraging no longer need to produce royal jelly and the protein begins to decrease causing a hormone to increase and promote ageing.
Bees attending to pollination and collecting nectar are already 25 + days old and most will die by day 50. However, it has been seen that foragers can return to being nurse bees if required by the colony but they do not fully return to previous levels of vitellogenin production as they did in their earlier life phase.
During winter months in colder climates bees live considerably longer. Brood production may cease completely in cold weather as the hive huddles together in order to keep warm.
Drones (male bees) pupate for longer at 24 days after the egg has been laid. Drones have no father as the Queen does not fertilise the egg prior to laying. Each hive will have roughly 10% of their number as drones. Drones do not collect nectar or pollen nor do they mate with the residing Queen. Their role is to develop and leave the hive in search of a Virgin Queen from another hive in which to mate.
Drones are much larger than other bees and will eat from the hive resources until the hive pushes him out or he leaves in search of a mate. He has no stinger and is unable to defend the colony during times of attack. It is believed the only function of a drone is mating, however there is ongoing research and discovery into this. It is therefore not surprising that when winter approaches and stores of honey and pollen are needed to maintain the colony, the workers evict the drones. They will simply raise more the following spring when they will be needed for mating with new Virgin Queens.
The behaviours and roles within the hive use simple, repeated feedback loops to gather information for multiple individuals. For example – one bee stings the beekeeper and releases an alarm pheramone alerting and recruiting other workers to the attack.
Each communication behaviour is deliberately conceived to provide the information necessary for the hive to function as a whole. Decisions are made collectively. In this way each individual bee within the colony forms part of the greater whole giving rise to the term Hive Mind. A super organism made up of many individuals relies on self organisation behaviours rather than central control or heirachy to function.
It is not the instruction of an individual such as the Queen but rather the sheer numbers of bees each with his/her own role to play in support of the greater hive that ensures survival, reproduction and thriving in the natural world.
If you are ready to jump into the wonderful world of beekeeping get in touch with us. We would love to support you. Read more about what we do here on the farm on this website or pop over to our sister site Ready to Adapt.