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The bee belongs to the family of
hymenoptera
,
(from the Greek hymen = membrane, these insects having translucent, membranous wings),
like the wasp and the ant. Bees live all over the world, except in regions where the
winter is too cold. There are many bee species, but the one we are most familiar with has
the scientific name Apis mellifica (or Apis mellifera).
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from egg to bee :
The bees (queen bee, worker bees or drones) are all
produced from tiny eggs, laid in an alveolus by the queen bee.
An inseminated egg (female), once laid a normal
cell and fed with pollen and honey pulp, will become a worker bee. The egg transforms into
a larva on the fourth day, and on the eighth day, the bees install the operculum and the
metamorphosis takes place in secret : the larva forms a cocoon, then a nymph, and the nymph
becomes a chrysalis until it finally hatches on the 15th day. The fully formed winged
insect tears open the operculum, ready to set to work.
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Other female eggs, laid in royal
cells, are fed exclusively with royal jelly. They are destined to become the future queen
bees. The operculum is fitted on the 6th day, and the transformation is slower: it will
take 21 days for the royal larva to become a young queen bee, measuring about 18mm long.
The non-fertilized eggs (males)
are placed in a normal cell and receive the same food as the worker larvas. The
metamorphosis is even longer: the drones leave the alveolus on the 23rd day.
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A well organized social life:
Like ants, bees are social insects, they
cannot live an isolated existence and need to live in
colonies
. The
colonies are very highly organized and are always made up of
worker bees
,
drones
and a single
queen bee
.
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The workers are exclusively female bees, the
greater part of the colony (about 30 000 to 70 000 in each hive). In the colony, where
they work without rest, they are in charge of all the tasks required for the smooth
operation of the hive. Yet, unlike ants that perform only one single, specific task during
their whole life, bees perform all the tasks successively during their short life, which
generally only lasts a few weeks (about 45 days).
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During the first four days of its life, the
worker bee cleans the alveolus and sees to the upkeep of the hive. From the 5th to the
11th day, the worker bee is
a nurse
and force-feeds the larvas in the
cells with
royal jelly
. Between the 11th and 13th days, the worker
bee becomes
a storekeeper
: its role consists of stocking pollen and
nectar
in the alveolus and ventilating the hive by flapping its wings
rapidly so that the temperature remains constant. From the 14th to the 17th day, the
beeswax glands having developed on its abdomen, the bee becomes
a waxmaker
and builds the honeycombs. From the 18th to the 21st day, the bee becomes
a sentry
and guards the hive entrance in order to chase away all intruders such as wasps,
butterflies, and even drones. From the 22th day until its death, the bee goes from flower
to flower collecting nectar, pollen and
propolis
: it becomes
a
gatherer bee
and brings food back to the hive.
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The drones are the only
males
in the colony. hey number several hundreds and are larger, rounder, and hairier than the
workers. They are tolerated within the hive as potential "fertilizers" of the
queen bee and live there from spring until summer. Unable to feed themselves, they are fed
by the worker bees. As they have no sting, they cannot protect the colony. However, they
do some work in the hive but their main job is the essential one of
fertilizing
the queen bee
.
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Only a few of them succeed during
a single, fatal nuptial flight. Once they have performed their reproductive mission, they
die, disembowelled by the queen bee. As soon as they leave the hive, the worker bees do
not let them back in because they are considered to be useless mouths to feed. The ones
who remain inside are mercilessly thrown out and left to fend for themselves. Unable to
provide for themselves, they are condemned to a certain death.
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In a colony, there can be
only one queen
bee
. She is born in a royal cell, an alveolus bigger than the others, oblong
shaped, and specially built by the worker bees to accommodate royal larvas. To ensure the
survival of the species, there are several royal cells in the hive, each containing a
royal larva fed with royal jelly and likely to become a queen bee.
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As soon as it is born, the first
queen bee has the mission of eliminating all the larvas in the other royal cells because
she has to rule without dividing the colony. If a second queen bee is born at the same
moment, the two queens fight pitilessly and the victor takes control of the hive. From 3
to 6 days after its birth, the young queen flies away for a unique nuptial flight where
she mates five or six times with a dozen drones. The flight is repeated until the queen's
spermatheca (a kind of sperm reservoir) is full. Once fertilized, the queen returns to the
hive and starts her life as
a layer
. During her four or five years'
existence, she will stay in the hive and her mission in life will be to lay up to
2000 eggs a day non-stop -
about an egg a minute!. Continuously surrounded,
protected and fed by worker bees, she is the object of all their attentions.
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This is because, of all the bees,
she is the only one that can
reproduce
, since the worker bees are
infertile. The queen lays male or female eggs depending on their state of fertilization :
the fertilized eggs become the worker bees, and the unfertilized ones become
drones.
It is also because she
is the one who determines the life of the entire hive. She secretes a chemical substance,
called
a pheromone
, that is specific to each hive and essential for
social cohesion. By touching and licking this secretion, the bees obtain all the
information necessary for them to organize their work.
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Tailored morphology:
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Nature never leaves anything to chance, and in
the bee has created an insect that is
completely adapted
to the different
roles it assumes within the hive.
Its
very mobile and sophisticated compound eyes enable the bee to see all around it and even
behind. Its
feelers
pierced with tiny holes, act as a nose. Bees have an
acute sense of smell and can locate distant
nectar
sources and
communicate between themselves with "odorous" secretions.
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Its mouth is made up of two powerful
mandibles
hat are used to cut, pinch, join and shape the wax layers,
knead the propolis and build the cell walls. The bee has
a proboscis
equipped with a sliding tongue that enables it to pump nectar from the deepest of
flowers.
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Its six
legs
are
also a very sophisticated working tool : the forelegs, with their small suckers, enable
the bee to seize pollen, cling to all surfaces and clean its feelers. The back legs, hairy
and shaped like spoons, are equipped with pollen bags where the bee loads and stores its
precious treasure, and with hooks that enables it to hold on to other bees to form a swarm
or
a wax line
. The abdomen contains
the crop
, a kind
of reservoir where the bee stores nectar, honey,
honeydew
, and the
water that it can regurgitate according to its needs. Its two pairs of membranous
wings
have the least resistance to air, enabling the bee to fly in any direction. Being powerful
ventilators, the wings produce particular sounds that act as a way of communication. The
bee, like the wasp, has
a sting
, mbut it can only strike once, in an
emergency, to protect its territory and its reserves: once the sting is planted, the bee
tears away a part of its abdomen and dies rapidly
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The language of bees :
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All information necessary to the
organization of the hive is obtained from the chemical substances,
pheromones
,
produced by the queen and the workers.
It is a messenger chemical that circulates
from one bee to another through the mouth and feelers into which they draw the information
.
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For instance, the queen's pheromone
is used to identify places, "mark " the hive, ocate nectar sources, swarming
places, and for the drones to identify the queen during the nuptial flight. The workers'
pheromones are used to give alarm signals, check food stocks, balance the population (by
regulating the queen bee's laying) and permanently maintain the ideal temperature and
humidity inside the hive. Moreover, the bees have an extremely precise code of language,
in the form of a
dance
. The dance, performed by guide bees returning to
the hive, informs the other bees of the location and distance of a food source.
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The
circular dance
indicates a
very close food source (less than 25 metres). For more remote food sources up to 10km
away,
the frantic dance
or figure-of-eight dance with complicated
movements, indicates the direction and distance of the treasure to be collected with
abdominal oscillations and vibrations. The direction is expressed in the relation to the
position of the sun and the distance by the number and speed of the rotations of the
dancing bee.
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An essential role in
nature:
In gathering
pollen, bees play an essential role in
pollination
, in the
multiplication of floral species and in the development of fruit growing. Without pollen,
there is no fruit and without bees there is no pollination! As bees are very sensitive to
pollution
,
it is essential that man and his environment respect the species and maintain the
conditions favourable to its development: for instance, by avoiding chemical treatments in
fruit growing, the destruction of hedgerows, rich in melliferous plants, or the
abandonment of crops such as lucerne or clover that are great nectar producers.
We should remember the words of Einstein :
"If the bee disappeared
from the surface of the globe, mankind would have only four years left to live; no more
bees, no more pollination, no more grass, no more animals, no more men ..."
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