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
Swarming (honey bee) by one or more virgin queens. Sometimes a beehive will swarm in succession until it is almost totally depleted of workers. Swarming is honey bee colonies' natural means of reproduction. In the process of swarming the original single colony reproduces to two and sometimes more colonies. For instance, one species of honey bee that participates in such swarming behavior is "Apis cerana." The reproduction swarms of this species settle 20–30 m away from the natal nest for a few days and will then depart for a new nest site after getting information from scout bees. Scout bees search for suitable