To effectively manage honey bees, the beekeeper must first understand the basic biology of this social insect. Many publications go into great detail on this subject; only a brief outline is developed here. Readers are urged to acquire Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees as a first step to understanding the complexities of culturing honey bees (apiculture).
All individuals in the colony are holometabolous and go through “complete” metamorphosis (change of body appearance). They begin their lives as an egg laid by the queen bee. After three days all eggs hatch. This is followed by a worm-like feeding stage called the “larva.” Subsequently, the tissues of the larva mobilize in a phase called “pupation,” with the individual that results called a “pupa.” Finally, the last phase is called the adult, and it cuts its way out of the wax cell (“emerges”) to begin her/his duties. See this 21-day development cycle encapsulated in a recent video found here at Ted Talks.
All fertilized eggs will become female bees (either workers or queens). Unfertilized eggs become males (drones). Thus, three individuals usually make up the honey bee colony, each having differing lifestyles, developmental times and life expectancies: a single reproductive female (queen); thousands of workers (non-reproductive females) and several hundred males (drones). Collectively all eggs, larvae and pupae in a colony are called brood. The average relative time each individual type (caste) spends in various life stages is shown below:
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Table 1. Average Developmental Times in Days for the Castes of the Honey bee. |
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|
Egg |
Larva |
Pupa |
Total |
Life Span |
|
| Queen (female) |
3.0 |
5.5 |
7.0 |
15.5 |
Years |
| Worker (female) |
3.0 |
6.0 |
12.0 |
21.0 |
Variable 70 Days summer to 180 fall/winter |
| Drone (male) |
3.0 |
6.5 |
14.5 |
24.0 |
45 Days |
The key individual in honey bee colonies is the worker, with a development time of 21 days. Queens have a shorter development time, drones longer.
A typical honey bee colony consists of one queen, about 10,00 to 30,000 workers and in the active season, with perhaps a few hundred to a thousand drones. Honey bees are regulated by a suite of pheromones, most having some role to play in terms of orientation of honey bees and the relationship of the queen with her workers (daughters).
The honey bee colony is perennial. Unlike many solitary insects, honey bees have the capacity to survive cold temperatures by bunching together in a tight cluster to produce and conserve heat. Therefore, a colony of honey bees can survive most of the harshest environmental challenges on the planet, an extreme example of the highest development of social interaction, eusociality.
Since the honey bee colony is well equipped to react to and survive outside environmental conditions, it is the beekeeper’s task to anticipate specific problems that challenge colonies. This is usually accomplished by coming to the aid of colonies by correcting population imbalances and/or food shortages, which can then give them a survival edge. Thus, management is really a study in limiting factors available to the bee colony in certain geographic areas, which is why beekeeping, like real estate, is often dependent on specific location.
The apicultural calendar guides the beekeeper’s activities throughout the year. It consists of three sections: (1) the rise and fall of bee populations, (2) the status of nectar and pollen producing plants (food resources), and (3) beekeeper colony manipulations based on either or both of the situations above. This often reflects to a great degree the record keeping ability of the beekeeper-manager as those experiences cataloged over time at a specific location are the best teacher. No matter how many records are kept, however, the honey bee still retains many of its secrets in “mysterious behaviors.”
In temperate areas, the apicultural calendar is driven mostly by photoperiod ( day length not prevailing temperatures), which contributes to the best survival of plants honey bees depend on. The presence or absence of sunlight on a seasonal basis is far more predictable than localized weather conditions (see Thirty Years of Spring). Honey bees in tropical areas by contrast time many activities based on rainfall, because day length is invariable, providing few clues to that potential survival strategy. Specific examples of several beekeeping calendars found on the World Wide Web.
A fuller explanation of honey bee biology can be seen at the Bee Health Cooperative Extension website.
