After a few days, the eggs hatch and develop into larvae. In contrast, she can lay an unfertilized egg to create a male bee. Meanwhile, female carpenter bees only lay between six and seven eggs in their entire lifetime.įemale bees choose the sex of their offspring.įor example, if a mother bee wants to create a female bee, then she lays a fertilized egg. Queen honey bees, for example, can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day. They look like tiny grains of rice under a microscope.Ī female bee can lay hundreds or even thousands of eggs in her lifetime, depending upon the bee species. Stage 1: Eggīee eggs are laid by the female bee inside the nest. Each of these different species shares the same four development stages. Common bee species examples include carpenter bees, bumble bees, mason bees, and sweat bees. Honey bees are merely one example of a bee species out of more than 20,000. We’ll use honey bees as our primary example.Īll bee species pass through the four stages (egg, larva, pupa, and adult). With that in mind, let’s discuss a bee’s life cycle in more detail. Think of a cocoon as a silk ‘sleeping bag’ some bees use before entering the pupa stage. Some bee species even spin cocoons around themselves before they pupate.Ĭocoons are silky webs that offer protection. Much like how butterflies look incredibly different from when they were caterpillars. Metamorphosis is the scientific way of saying “huge change.” It refers to how bees look totally different in the larva stage than in the adult stage. Meanwhile, bees develop from eggs to larvae to pupae to adults.īees undergo a complete metamorphosis like butterflies and moths do. Humans develop from babies to toddlers to teenagers to adults. A typical colony of honeybee consists of 50,000 to 60,000 worker bees, 600 to 1000 drone bees and only 1 queen bee.03 Can Bees Lay Eggs Without Mating? What Are the Four Stages of the Bee Life Cycle?Īll bees undergo four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.īees pass through a life cycle just like humans do. Adult StageĪll three types of bees are now fully grown and are fully ready to accomplish their tasks. This stage usually lasts for 7.5 days for queen bee, 12 days for worker bee and 14.5 days for drone bee (male bee). Worm-like body has now three distinct parts of the body. Reorganization of tissues massively takes place during pupal stage. Larval stage for queen bee lasts for 5.5 days, 6 days for worker bees and 6.5 days for drones. As the third day progresses larvae that are destined to develop into queen bees continue to fed on royal jelly, while worker larvae feed on honey, water and pollen. Larva is fed on a diet known as royal jelly for initial two days. During this stage, hatched larva is almost microscopic in size without legs and eyes. This stage generally lasts up to nine odd days. Hatching of eggs normally occurs after three days of egg laying. Every egg has an opening on the broader side that enables a sperm to penetrate in. Eggs are very tiny and have appearance of poppy seeds in shape. Egg Stageįirst stage of development in the life cycle is egg stage. Four distinct honey bee life cycle stages can be summarized as following. The total developmental time for a Queen bee is 16 days, 21 days for worker bee and approximately 24 days for drone or male bee.
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