Hive

Structure

Honeybee nests are composed of single or several nests, and the nests are composed of a series of closely arranged hexahedral nests

 

Function

1. Honeycomb is the main place for bees to rest and activities. For example, bees will gather in the honeycomb to rest at night or in bad weather such as strong wind and rainstorm.

2. Honeycomb is a "nursery" for bees to feed larvae. For example, bees cultivate worker bees (worker hive), drones (male hive) and new queens (throne).

3. Honeycomb is the "storeroom" for bees to store food. Bees will brew nectar into honey and store it in the honeycomb in the season when there are abundant honey sources outside.

Material

Due to different bee species, there are mainly two kinds of bee hives: bee hive and Hu hive. Among them, the bee hive is built with beeswax (fatty substance secreted by the wax gland of age-old worker bees, which develops at the age of 10 days and ends at the age of 20 days), while the Hu hive is built with pulp like wood pulp (the wasp spits out and mixes saliva after chewing dry plants).

Type of bees in hive

Usually, there are three classifications in a bee colony, including queen bee, worker bee and drone

Queen Bee

Features

The queen bee is a female bee with fully developed reproductive organs. Under normal bee colony, there is only one queen bee in the colony. It is large and 1 / 3 longer than the worker bee. Its abdomen is long. It is not as strong as the worker bee and there is no pollen basket on its hind feet, After mating with drone, it has complete oviposition ability.

Functions

The queen bee have two main roles in the bee colony. One is that the queen bee can produce fertilized and unfertilized eggs to cultivate new bees. In fact, except a few males in the colony are the offspring of the queen bee. The other is that the queen bee can secrete queen pheromone to maintain the order of the colony. Queen pheromone is highly attractive to workers and can inhibit workers from cultivating new queen bees, If the colony loses its king for too long, some worker bees will develop ovaries and lay eggs.

Worker Honey Bees

Features

Worker bees are female bees with incomplete reproductive organs. Under normal circumstances, there are tens of thousands of worker bees in the bee colony. They are smaller than the queen bee, with developed tubular mouthparts, conical abdomen, wax plate on the abdomen, sharp end and venomous glands and pincers

 

Function

Worker bees are the most important workers in the colony, undertaking almost all the work inside and outside the colony, such as collecting food, building beehives, feeding larvae, brewing honey, guarding beehives, etc.

Amount

Usually, there is only 1 queen bee in the hive.

Drone

Features

Drones are haploid male bees. Under normal bee colony, there are hundreds to thousands of drones in the bee colony. They are thicker than worker bees, darker and black than worker bees. Their heads are nearly round, and their compound eyes are larger than worker bees and queen bees. They have 11 segments of antennal flagellum, wide wings, thick and short legs, no stingers, wax glands and olfactory glands, and their service life is generally 3 ~ 4 months.

Function

The main function of the drone is to mate with the new queen bee. After mating, the new queen bee will die immediately due to the loss of reproductive organs. In fact, the new queen bee cannot lay eggs normally without mating with the drone. After the new queen bee mating is successful, the drone will become a burden of the bee colony. When the honey source is scarce, the worker bee will bite the male bee, or drive the male bee outside the hive to die of cold or starvation.