Correct. More on bees. It is time we had taken a closer look at bee
colonies. Some bees are solitary, meaning that they live alone, while other
bees are social, meaning that they live in colonies.
Honeybees are social bees. Each hive has many types of bees, including the
queen, the drones (males) and the worker bees, which are all females. Each
bee has its own job to do:
The queen: lays eggs
for the colony
The workers:
The
life cycle of the bee has four stages: the egg, larva, pupa and adult. The
process of developing from larva to adult is called metamorphosis. This is
what happens when the pupa undergoes metamorphosis:
Step 1: The queen lays her eggs into one of the cells in the hive
(which I forgot to mention that the hive is full of six-sided cells) and
soon it hatches into a pupa
Step 2: The pupa is fed with a protein-rich food called royal jelly.
After a few days, the pupa is fed with a food made by mixing honey with
pollen called beebread
Step 3:
Step 4: After a few more days, the larva goes into its cell and spins
a cocoon around it. The worker then bees cap (cover) the cell.
Step 5: After another few more days, the adult bee chews its way out
of its cocoon and cell and becomes part of the colony.
Now,
you must be thinking about what will happen to the bees that at the larva
stage have been chosen to become queens. Well, when the colony gets too
crowded and the queen gets old, the queen bee and a few workers will leave
the hive and start a new colony. The ‘future’ queen bees will fight among
themselves and when there is only one queen left, she will become the queen.
This process is called swarming.
You
have learned so much about bees already! You’re going to learn one last
thing about bees. The advantages and facts!
THE
FACTS AND ADVANTAGES OF BEES Time for facts
Fact 1: All worker bees and queens are females. The only males in the
colony are the drones.
Fact 2: Worker bees can only sting once as their stings are connected
to an internal organ, and as they sting, the sting sticks right into the
wound the bee will die after it stings.
Fact 3: Drones cannot sting.
Fact 4: The queen is the only one that can use her sting more than
once.
Time
for: the advantages of bees
Advantage 1: Bees make honey for humans and humans drink honey.
Advantage 2: Bees help pollinate the flowers when they collect pollen
and nectar.
Advantage 3: Bees provide us with beeswax which is used to make
candles.
Now,
bees are both interesting and useful, aren’t they? We should learn to
protect and treasure all bee species. We don’t want them to be extinct, do
we?!
