THE QUEEN BEE HER BIRTH, LIFE AND DEATH

Honey bees operate a well-organised case system where the queen bee is at the centre of all the activities going on in the hive. Every bee has a specific task to do. The female worker bees constitute the largest share of the hive’s population. They are tasked with the responsibility of cleaning and building the hives, as well as collecting pollen and nectar. A male drone's only purpose is to mate with the queen, after which they die. The life of a worker bee is a very harsh one; although worker bees can live for four to six months during the summer or spring they only get to live for six weeks before dying of exhaustion. The life span of a drone is even shorter. They only get to live for an average of fifty-five days before they die. And there is the queen who can live as long as six years. She is the mother of most or all the bees in the colony. Her responsibility is to lay all the eggs that would ensure the continuity of the hive. She can lay as many as two thousand eggs in a day. The queen bee is usually surrounded by worker bees who attend to her every need, feeding, grooming and even the disposing of her waste. So how does a bee become a queen?