The Workers

The Workers

Worker bees are females, but lack the reproductive anatomy of a queen, and perform all of the necessary duties of the hive. The average life span of the worker bee is six weeks. From the day a worker bee is "born" she begins her duties by cleaning out her wax comb cell and preparing it for a new egg, and the future of another bee. Young worker bee duties begin with cleaning and undertaking, and move on to nursing the brood, accepting the pollen and nectar stores of the forager bees. She begins to learn how to fan and ripen the food stores to create honey, and can regulate the temperature and humidity of the hive. By day 12 she her glands have developed, and she can begin to create wax and build comb. At three weeks, the worker begins the important duty of guarding and protecting the hive. the hive. move on to other in-hive responsibilities Soon she leaves the hive for the first time to begin orientation flights. Once she learns the location of the hive, the worker bee enters the final stage of her life as a forager, or field bee. She will begin the important job of collecting food and water for the colony, a very challenging job. Honey bees must visit over 5 million flowers to produce a single pint of honey. When a worker bee finds a great place with plenty of pollen and nectar, she returns to the hive and does a "bee dance" to alert the other bees about her find. Although honey bees have been documented to have flown up to 5 miles to collect food stores, most foraging bees search for food within a one- to two-mile radius of the hive, visiting about 500 to 600 flowers each day, and returning to the colony with the pollen baskets, or corbicula, on her legs full. It is not know whether her demise is caused by the sun's UV rays, or the difficult and exhausting work she performs, but within a short time, the worker bee's time end. Most will die in the field, but those few who expire in the hive are unceremoniously tossed out by the undertaker bees.