🐝 Beekeeping For Everyone! - #3 - Honeybee Castes
Honeybees are a social insects and live in a colony. The colony uses a caste system to ensure the survival of the colony. The castes consist of Queen, worker and drone as seen from left to right in the photo below.
image credit: madegood.org
What's in a Egg?
The queen is the 'mother' of the hive as she lays all the eggs. But what determines what the egg will be?
When a queen mates she stores the sperm in a special receptacle called the spermatheca. When she lays and egg, she decides whether to fertilize the egg with sperm stored in the spermatheca. An unfertilized egg will become a drone which is a male bee. If the queen decides to fertilize the egg, it will become a female bee, either a queen or a worker. The size of the cell determines if she fertilizes the egg or not. Larger cells will be drones. Photo below shows drone brood on the left and worker brood on the right.
image credit: cookevillebeekeepers.com
Depending on what the larvae of a fertilized egg is fed determines if it will be a queen or a worker.
For the first 3 days after an egg hatches, it is fed royal jelly, which is a white milk-like glandular secretion from nurse bees. The photo below shows larvae floating in royal jelly.
image credit: Wikipedia
A larvae destined to be a queen bee is continued on royal jelly until the cell is capped for pupation. A larvae destined to be a worker bee is switched to worker jelly after the 3 days. Worker jelly is mainly honey/nectar and fermented pollen (bee bread). Larvae destined to be a drone is also fed worker jelly.
They are what they eat?
Nutrition plays a big part in the honeybee development. Royal jelly is an extremely rich and nutritious food source. The queen bee is the largest bee, but has the shortest gestation. All because of royal jelly. A worker bee that is switched to worker jelly is actually a smaller, sterile replica of a queen, that has been stunted with a less rich diet.
image credit: Pigeon Mountain
End with a Riddle
A drone has no father, only a grandfather....
Interested in Beekeeping?
Follow me (@bushkill) so you don't miss the next post in the Beekeeping for Everyone! series
Check out the previous posts in the Beekeeping for Everyone! series
#1 - Introduction
#2 - The Importance of Pollinators
Also check out these favorites:
Why You Should NEVER EVER Kill Honeybees Living in Your House
The Mysteries of a Bee Beard Revealed!!
Beekeep On!
@bushkill
This is amazing!
I have a big love for bees and yet they scare me :D
I promise, I never kill them but I run away like a little scared snek!
I think there needs to be more and more information about bees spread in the world because they really do good things and we need them in the world! They might scare me but I will fight for them with my life!
Much love
Snekky!
Honeybee get a bad reputation because people assume they have the same temperament as wasp, hornets, and yellow jackets. The really have no interest in humans and prefer to ignore us unless they feel threatened. That is why swatting at them is an issue. Best to stand still and they will move on. Stay tuned, once spring arrives I will be doing some videos and you will see the great temperament they have.
Looking forward to reading and seeing more of your content!
I never swat at them because I believe that will bring demons at my door! Kidding but yes, they kinda scare me but I also love them. Maybe it's because of the fact that I have been stung a few times to many when I was kid. Not even sure if those critters were bees but.... once scared its hard to cuddle them. I love the beard picture but brrrr :D
greatt post
thanks jack, I always enjoy your interest and comments.
@bushkill its great to meet some pll like you, hwo love mother nature
That's interesting. I bet it would make a great baseline for a disney cartoon. That's what i imagined as i read about the royal jelly. (Somehow the wrong bee gets the royal jelly.) Lol I know scientifically not possible but still a neat story line. Lol
Ha Ha, In my replies overview it only showed your first two sentences and I thought 🤔 OK, I guess. Then I go and see the whole comment and the storyline makes complete sense (for a cartoon). Great thinking and it is amazing how cartoons can be used to educate the young. Unfortunately I don't think cartoons today are educating kids on the right things.
Great post it is. Bee keeping is cumbersome. Thank you for sharing.
@stevenmosoes
thanks @stevenmosoes
you are national geographic bro :)
thanks 👍🏻
Woa! That's fascinating! I had no idea that the different bees got fed diferent food...
Keep the info coming! I'm absorbing so much from your posts! <3
It is actually more interesting than I described as well. Depending on the time of the year they raise bees with different fat content. Summer bees are very active gathering pollen and nectar, whereas winter bees do very little flying and main objective is to keep warm and survive until spring. So bees raised for winter have a much higher fat content.
wow, we really do just assume things about nature just "happen" until we learn how complex and smart it us-I had no idea!
And we haven't figures out 1/2 of it yet 😜 Been at it for 40 years and still learning and amazed all the time. Fascinating creatures.
WOW! I can't wait to learn more, hopefully putting the intention out there into the universe may speed up the process of keeping my own bees in the future ;)
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Wow, nice. I watched a film that shows how a queen be controlled the colony.
@seyiodus.
Thanks, if you remember the name of the film, let me know.
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This post has received a 0.24 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @dreamingirwin.
WOw, thank you @dreamingirwin