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Marked queen. The queen bee's abdomen is longer than the worker bees surrounding her and also longer than a male bee's. Even so, in a hive of 60,000 to 80,000 honey bees, it is often difficult for beekeepers to find the queen with any speed; for this reason, many queens in non-feral colonies are marked with a light daub of paint on their thorax ...
A worker bee is any female bee that lacks the reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee and carries out the majority of tasks needed for the functioning of the hive. While worker bees are present in all eusocial bee species, the term is rarely used (outside of scientific literature) for bees other than honey bees , particularly the ...
The adult worker bees, owing to the initially poor supply situation, are relatively small, reaching only about half the body length of the queen and lacking functioning ovaries. Later-hatching bees are much larger. The additional nesting and brood care is dedicated solely to the queen, which no longer leaves the nest.
The complex social structure of western honey bee hives means that all of these life stages occur simultaneously throughout much of the year. The queen deposits a single egg into each cell of a honeycomb prepared by worker bees. The egg hatches into a legless, eyeless larva fed by "nurse" bees (worker bees who maintain the interior of the colony).
A drone is characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. His abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. Although heavy bodied, the drone must be able to fly fast enough to accompany the queen in flight.
The worker bees huddle around the queen bee at the center of the cluster, shivering to keep the center between 27 °C (81 °F) at the start of winter (during the broodless period) and 34 °C (93 °F) once the queen resumes laying. The worker bees rotate through the cluster from the outside to the inside so that no bee gets too cold.
The flight period lasts from about April to September. The queen bee emerges from hibernation in the spring. She makes a nest on or slightly below the surface of the ground among open vegetation. An old mouse or vole nest may be used. By summer, the nest may contain around 100 worker bees. Each nest requires about 10 km 2 (3.9 sq mi) of ...
In colonies that exhibit eusocial behavior, meaning there are 2-7 bees rather than the solitary foundress, the other worker bees are usually directly related to the queen. [13] Worker bees can be mated or unmated in the colony and are smaller than the queen bee in size. [13]