Honey bee life cycle Honey bee life cycle The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure. Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. The three types of honey bees in a hive are: queens (egg-producers), workers (non-reproducing females), and drones (males whose main duty is to find and mate with a queen). Honey bees hatch from eggs in three to four days. They are then fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped
Maltese honey bee the loss of native colonies. In 1997 it was identified as a sub-species. It breeds well with the Italian sub-species making a strain that defends well against "Varroa", having a good honey yield and is less aggressive, although this is somewhat endangering the Maltese sub-species as a genetically distinct entity; however after some generations it reverts back to it's natural aggressive state. Maltese honey bee The Maltese honey bee, "Apis mellifera ruttneri", is a sub-species of the Western honey bee. It originates from Malta, where it is native. The bee is a sub-species of the Western honey bee that has