Worker bee
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A worker bee is a female bee that lacks the full reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee. The worker bees keep the hive temperature uniform in the critical brood area (where new bees are raised). Worker bees gather pollen which they stick to combs in their back legs, to carry back to the hive where it is used as food for the developing brood. Pollen from the stamens of one flower, carried on their bodies, is carried to another flower where a small portion rubs off onto the pistil, resulting in cross pollination. (Bees and flowering plants co-evolved many millions of years ago.) Almost all of civilization's food supply (maize is a noteworthy exception) depends greatly on crop pollination by honeybees, whether directly eaten or used as forage crops for animals that produce milk and meat. Nectar is sucked up through the proboscis, mixed with enzymes in the stomach, and carried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evaporated into honey. Worker bees must maintain the hive's brood chamber at 34.4 degrees C to incubate the eggs. If it is too hot, they collect water and deposit it around the hive, then fan air through with their wings causing cooling by evaporation. If it is too cold, they cluster together to generate body heat. The life of all honeybees starts as an egg, about the size of a comma "," which is laid by the queen in the bottom of a wax cell in the brood area of a hive. A worker egg hatches after 3 days into a larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first, then pollen & honey for 6 days. It then becomes an inactive pupa. The honey comb has hexagon cells on both sides of a vertical central wall. As shown in the photo, these cells are inclined upward, primarily to retain liquid nectar and honey. During its 14 days as a pupa, sealed in a capped cell, it grows into a worker (female) bee, emerging on the 20th day. Workers do everything but lay eggs and mate. They build the comb from wax extruded from glands under their abdomen. They clean, defend, & repair the hive. They feed the larva, the queen, and the drones. They gather nectar, pollen, water, and propolis. They ventilate, cool & heat the hive.
When a colony absconds (all bees leave the colony) or divides and so creates a swarm and then establishes a new colony, the bees must regress in their behavior in order to establish the first generation in the new home. The most urgent task will be the creation of new beeswax for comb. Beekeepers take advantage of this by introducing swarms into new or existing colonies where they will draw comb.[citation needed] Comb is much more difficult to come by than honey and requires about six times the energy to create. A newly hived swarm on bar bars (top bar hive) or empty foundation (Langsthroth box hive) will often be fed sugar water, which they can then rapidly consume to create wax for new comb (Mature hives cannot be so fed as they will store it in place of nectar, although a wintering hive may have to be fed if insufficient honey was left by the beekeeper.)
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[edit] Progression of tasks
[edit] Cell cleaning (Day 1-2)
Brood cells must be cleaned before the next use - cells will be inspected by the queen and if unsatisfactory will not be used. Worker bees in the cleaning phase will perform this cleaning.
[edit] Nurse bee (Day 3-11)
Nurse bees feed the worker larvae beebread made of pollen and honey.
- Advanced Nurse Bees (Day 6-11)
- Feed royal jelly to the queen larva and bee milk, which is just another term for royal jelly, to the 1-3 day old drone and worker larvae.
[edit] Wax production (Day 12-17)
Wax Bees - build cells from wax, repair old cells, and store nectar and pollen brought in by other workers. Early in the worker's career she will exude wax from the space between several of her abdominal segments. Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four ventral segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction.
[edit] Worker activities
[edit] Honey sealing
Mature honey, sufficiently dried, is sealed tightly with wax to prevent absorption of moisture from the air by workers deputized to do same.
[edit] Drone feeding
Drones do not feed themselves; they are fed by workers.
[edit] Queen attendants
The attendants or retinue groom and feed the queen. They also collect QMP (Queen Madibular Pheromone) from the queen and share it with the bees around them who also share it spreading it's effects through the hive.
[edit] Honeycomb building
Workers will take wax from wax producing workers and build the comb with it.
[edit] Pollen packing
Pollen brought into the hive for feeding the brood is also stored. It must be packed firmly into comb cells and mixed with a small amount of honey so that it will not spoil. Unlike honey, which does not support bacterial life, stored pollen will become rancid without proper care.
[edit] Propolizing
The walls of the hive will be covered with a thin coating of propolis, a resinous substance obtained from plants. In combination with enzymes added by the worker this will have antibacterial and antifungal properties.
Propolis is also used to close off excessive ventilation and entrances.
[edit] Mortuary bees
Dead bees and failed larvae must be removed from the hive to prevent disease and allow cells to be reused. They will be carried some distance from the hive by mortuary bees.
[edit] Fanning bees
Worker bees fan the hive, cooling it with evaporated water brought by water carriers.[citation needed] They direct airflow into the hive or out of the hive depending on need.
[edit] Guard Bees (Days 18 - 21)
protect the entrance of the hive from enemies
- Soldier bees
Soldiers hang around near the entrance and attack invaders. They work in concert with entrance guards.
- Entrance guard bees
These inspect incoming bees to ensure that they are bringing in food and have the correct hive odor. Other bees will be rejected or attacked with soldier bees.
- Outside guard bees
Outer guards may take short flights around the outside of the hive in response to disturbances.
[edit] Water carriers
When the hive is in danger of overheating these bees will obtain water, usually from within a short distance from the hive and bring it back to spread on the backs of fanning bees. The worker bee has a crop separate from the nectar crop for this purpose.
[edit] Foraging bees (Days 22 - 42)
The forager and scout bees travel (up to 1.5 miles) to a nectar source, pollen source or to collect propolis.
[edit] Genetic characteristics
In most common bee-species, worker bees are infertile and thus never reproduce. They are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee, but then will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three days of its larval form.
[edit] The stinger
The worker bee's stinger is a complex organ that allows a bee to defend itself and the hive from most mammals. Attacking bees aim for the face by sensing regions with high levels of carbon dioxide (like mosquitos.) Bee stings against mammals and birds typically leave the stinger embedded in victim due to the structure of flesh and the stinger's barbs. In this case, the venom bulb stays with the stinger and continues to pump. Upon losing its stinger, the bee will subsequently die from losing part of its insides, since the portion where the stinger bulb was removed draws out part of its insides. Most other animals can be stung many times by the same bee.
[edit] Stingless bees
There are some bees native to Australia that do not have stingers and which are favored for pollination in greenhouses. These bees are not defenseless as they have an irritating secretion that they can release when they bite with their mandibles, similar to the defenses of some ants.
[edit] References
- The Honey Files: A Bee’s Life, A Teaching Guide, Produced by the National Honey Board, 2001
- Organization of a bee colony FAO
[edit] See also
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