What are the works done by queen bee and drones and workers?
Answers
Answer:
The bees are social insects which show division of labor in their hive.Honey bees are social creatures that enlist a caste
system to accomplish the tasks that ensure the
survival of the colony. Thousands of worker bees, all
sterile females, assume responsibility for feeding,
cleaning, nursing, and defending the group. Male
drones live to mate with the queen, who is the only
fertile female in the colony.
The Queen
The queen bee is the dominant, adult female bee that
is the mother of most, if not all the bees in the hive. A
future queen bee's larva is selected by worker bees to
be nourished with a protein-rich secretion known as
royal jelly so that it can sexually mature.
A newly hatched queen begins her life in a duel to the
death with any other queens present in the colony and
must destroy potential rivals that have not yet
hatched. Once she accomplishes this, she takes her
virgin mating flight. Throughout her life, she lays eggs
and secretes a pheromone that keeps all other females
in the colony sterile.
Drones
A drone is a male bee that is the product of an
unfertilized egg. Drones have bigger eyes and lack
stingers. They cannot help defend the hive and they do
not have the body parts to collect pollen or nectar, so
they cannot contribute to feeding the community.
The drone's only job is to mate with the queen.
Mating occurs in flight, which accounts for the need of
the drones for better vision, which is provided by their
large eyes. Should a drone succeed in mating, he soon
dies because the penis and associated abdominal
tissues are ripped from the drone's body after sexual
intercourse. In the fall in areas with colder winters,
worker bees mind the food stores and prevent drones
from entering the hive since they are no longer
needed, effectively starving them to death
Workers
Worker bees are female. They accomplish every chore
unrelated to reproduction, which is left up to the
queen bee. In their first days, workers tend to the
queen. For the remainder of their short lives (just a
single month), workers keep busy.
Newly hatched worker bees are larvae, unable to feed
themselves. Worker bees feed their larvae a liquid
called "worker jelly," and they eat as many as 800
times a day to build up fat stores. After eight or nine
days, larval worker bees spin cocoons and enter the
pupal stage. Three weeks later, fully-formed worker
bees chew through their cocoons; just a few hours
later they're ready to go to work.
There are many jobs for workers to do, such as
preserving honey , feeding drones, building the
honeycomb, storing pollen, removing the dead,
foraging for food and nectar, carrying in water,
fanning the hive to maintain the proper temperature,
and guarding the hive against invaders such as wasps.
Worker bees also make the decision, when necessary,
to relocate the colony in a swarm and then rebuild the
new nest.
Maintaining proper temperature for the hive is crucial
for the survival of the eggs and larvae. The brood
chamber for the bees' young must remain at a steady
temperature to incubate the eggs. If it is too hot, the
workers collect water and deposit it around the hive,
then fan the air with their wings causing cooling by
evaporation. If it is too cold, the worker bees cluster
to generate body heat.