The honey bee presents an example of social and organized living. The members are well defined into various castes with their special works. They are divided into: 1. Queen 2. Worker and 3. Drone.
Type # 1. Queen:
Largest of all the bees with small legs and weak wings. Queen bee is the real ruler of the hive. She has an extended abdomen, full of eggs and the last segment is modified as an ovipositor. She has no work except eating and laying eggs. She lives for 3-3 % years and lays about 14-15,00,000. eggs during her life span. The rate of egg laying under favourable conditions may be 2,000 eggs per day.
Generally only one queen is founding in a comb but in case when her egg laying capacity is reduced she can be changed and replaced by another queen. In extreme cases such an old queen comes out of the hive and establishes another hive. In some of the cases a colony may have more than one queen but only one is allowed to live in the hive rest are pressed to leave the nest.
Queen is supposed to be the mother of all the drones and workers and queens (if they are) present in the comb. She lays both fertilized and unfertilized eggs which later on develop as male and workers. Some of the workers which are in real sense the females are fed with a special substance called “Royal jelly” and the larvae fed on royal jelly develops as a queen rest as workers. By the time the egg laying capacity of the queen goes slow a new larvae is fed with royal-jelly and is developed as future queen.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
A single fertilization is sufficient for the whole life. The queen moves from cell to cell of the comb and lays eggs. She has no special cell to live in and is always surrounded by the workers. She is generally found in the lower border of the hive. A mated queen collects the sperms in a receptacle and it is on her will to decide which batch of the eggs should be fertilized and which should not the males or drones are generally unfertilized whereas the queen and the workers develop from the fertilized eggs.
There is no difference in the organs or morphology of the worker or queen but for the size of legs and wings. The queen bee is fed with a highly nitrogenous food mixed with pollen honey and a secretion from the lateral pharyngeal glands. All these are mixed and make as Royal jelly. An egg develops as a larva in 3 days and grub into pupa in 5-7 days. The pupa emerges out after a week as an adult.
Type # 2. Workers:
More than 90% of the total population present in the comb consists of workers. Th