If you are a bee farmer or planning to be one, studying the life cycle of bees can help you a lot. There are various specific life cycles for different classes of bees. However, the general life cycle of bees include the following patterns:
- Every class of bees has a queen which lays eggs in a single cell
- The eggs convert into larva that hatches after almost three days
- Workers are required to feed the larva in the cell
- The skin of the larva is shed almost five times during this entire stage
- A cocoon is spun around the hatched larva by the ninth day
- Once the pupa is made, this stage can vary according to different classes
- The queen emerges after sixteen days
- Once the queen emerges, the workers also start appearing on the twenty-first day
- The drone appears on the twenty-fourth day
- After the appearance of drone, the pupa starts looking like an actual bee
- The bee is fully grown and ready to depart the nest after about three days
The specific life cycle of most of the bees is the same but the time taken by different stages varies. The production of offspring takes longer for some of the classes and depends on the egg that is laid by the queen. The food that is provided to the larva has also a great impact on the offspring. Every queen bee lays two types of eggs – fertilized and unfertilized. The majority of the fertilized eggs turn into female bees that are non-reproductive. They are known as ‘workers’. Their life span ends within four months. The population of bees is mostly made up of these non-reproductive worker bees. They go through a number of work stages during their adult lifespan. It has been observed that they live longer in the areas that are colder. The life cycle of the bees is extremely organized.
