Honey Bee Reproductive System

Bees have two stomachs - one stomach for eating and the other special stomach is for storing nectar collected from flowers or water so that they can carry it back to their hive.

A honeybee can fly 24 km in an hour. Its wings beat 200 times per second or 12,000 beats per minute.

Bees carry pollen on their hind legs called a pollen basket. Pollen is a source of protein for the hive and is needed to feed to the baby bees to help them grow.

A beehive in summer can have as many as 50,000 to 80,000 bees. A bee must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey. It requires 556 worker bees to gather a pound of honey.

Honey Bee Reproductive System

By Charlotte & Billie

Gender System

There are two genders of Honey Bees - Male and Female. There is one type of male bee and two types of female bee

Male

Drones

A drone is a male bee.

The drone's structure means that it has a limited role in the colony. Drones do not have stingers, so they cannot defend the hive. And because they have no structures for collecting pollen or nectar, they cannot contribute to feeding the community.

Once they have mated with a fertile queen, their only reason for its existence, the drone dies.

In autumn, worker bees prevent drones from entering the hive, which causes them to starve to death.

Female

Mating System & Fertilization

Queen Bee

Worker Bee

A worker bee is one type of female bee

Female worker bees perform every chore unrelated to reproduction.

They build the comb in which honey is stored and eggs are laid.

Workers collect pollen and nectar, and evaporate the nectar to make honey for times when food is unavailable.

They look after to the queen, the young drones, and the larvae.

Worker bees are equipped with stingers, so when the hive is threatened, the workers defend the colony.

The Queen is bee is the other type of female bee. There is only one in each colony

A newly hatched queen begins her life in a duel to the death with any other queens present in the colony, and must destroy potential rivals that have not yet hatched.

Once she accomplishes this, she takes her virgin mating flight.

Her job is to lay eggs. She will lay up to 600,000 eggs during her lifetime.

She is the only female in the colony that is able to produce female or male bees, as she secretes a pheromone that keeps all other females in the colony sterile.

The queen has a long tapered abdomen and is developed this way so she can serve her purpose throughout her 2 or 3 year life span.

Mating Method

Determination of gender and role

The queen bee lays two kinds of eggs –fertilized and non-fertilized eggs. The non-fertilized eggs will develop into male bees (drones), while the fertilized eggs grow into female bees. This is called gender determination. Afterward, the female bees can develop into queens or workers, depending on their nutrition during their larva stage.

Only the queen bee and the drones have a fully developed reproductive system. The worker bees have an atrophic reproductive system. Seven days after her incubation the queen bee flies outside the beehive, where drones gather, and she mates usually with 8-12 drones in mid-air and in approximately a 25-meter height, in temperatures higher than 20°C, with wind speed lower than 28 km/h and during the afternoon.

During mating, the drone’s genitals are reversed and come out of his body, and with his abdominal muscles contracting, he ejaculates. During mating, the drones genitals are cut from his body, causing his death. Parts of his genitals remain inside the queen’s vagina – called the “mating sign” – and are removed by the next drone.

Mating lasts 5-18 minutes. The queen stores all the sperm and a gland excretes nutrients that ensures the survival of almost 7,000,000 sperm, which can be used for the rest of her life. During the egg-laying the queen bee chooses whether she will fertilize every egg that she lays

The Honey Bee

The Honey Bee - Overview

(Some facts)

A honey bee is type of bee, primarily distinguished by its production and storage of honey

Honey Bees live in urban areas, forests, woodlands and heath. Honey bees have successfully established hives throughout Australia

Honey Bees are one of the most recognisable insects and are the most commonly domesticated bee species in the world. They are somewhat variable in colour but are usually brown with a striped dull yellow and brown abdomen. They are covered in hair

Offspring

Eggs

Honey bee eggs measure 1 to 1.5 mm long, about half the size of a single grain of rice. When the queen lays her eggs, she moves through the comb, closely examining each cell before laying her eggs. The process of laying one egg takes only a few seconds, and a queen is capable of laying up to 2,000 honey bee eggs within a single day.

INVESTMENT FOR CARE:

Once the Queen Bee lays her eggs in the hive there is no further interaction between mother and offspring. Although the worker bees come and feed the eggs (to be elaborated upon)

The eggs are placed in the hive where the embryo develops, therefore bees are oviparous insects

Life Cycle

Summary

During the first stage of development, the digestive system, nervous system and outer covering are formed.

- After 3 days, eggs hatch into worker larvae. During this stage, each larva will be fed about 1,300 times a day! They are fed by worker bees that have the specific task of tending the brood, and are referred to as the ‘brood nurses’. These honey bee larvae have no legs, eyes, antennae or wings; they resemble a grain of rice with a small mouth. They will eat and grow into adult workers, queens or drones.

- After about 6 days, the egg cells are capped, and each larva spins itself a cocoon and becomes a pupa.

- Worker bees take 10 days to emerge from pupae. Drones take slightly longer. New Queens, however, take about 6 days.

FOOD:

The food given is made from pollen, honey, and secretions from the brood nurses, and is called ‘bee bread’. Potential honey bee queens, however, are given ‘royal jelly’, a much richer food.