Behavior
In the wild, honey bee hives are often located in the holes of trees and on
rock crevices. The hive is made from wax from the special abdominal
glands of worker honey bees. Workers sweep up a few flakes of wax from
their abdomens and chew these flakes until the wax becomes soft. Workers
then mold the wax and use it in making cells to form the hive. Unlike other
bee species, honey bees do not hibernate during cold periods. Instead, they
remain inside the nests huddled closely together, sharing body heat and
feeding on stored food supplies.
Honey bees are social creatures and live in colonies. However, they do
display some aggressive behavior within colonies: drones are ejected from
their nests during cold weather, and a queen will sometimes sting other
queens during mating fights for dominance. Although honey bees serve a
significant role in pollination and ecology, measures should be taken to
ensure that hives do not exist in close proximity to your home, due to the
possibility of getting stung. Always contact a pest control professional
before attempting to address an infestation.
Honey bee facts: The colony and responsibilities of each bee
Like some other bee species, honey bees are social and live in colonies
numbering in the thousands. Three types of adult honey bees reside in one
colony: the queen, male drones and infertile female workers.
In each colony, there is only one egg-laying queen, but there are thousands
of workers. The queen honey bees mate with drones, establish new
colonies and lay eggs. Queen bees lay eggs in the cells of the nest, and
when they hatch, they become larvae. Each colony contains only one
queen, who is capable of producing 2,000 eggs a day.
Adult workers tend the larvae inside the cells and feed them with pollen
and honey for approximately three weeks, at which point they become
adults. Mature bees chew themselves out of the sealed cells to emerge.
Drones, or male bees, are the minority in a colony and serve only one
purpose: to mate with virgin honey bee queens. Soon after mating, drones
die.
Although infertile worker females usually do not produce their own eggs
nor establish new colonies, they perform several important tasks. Young
honey bee workers tend to larvae by secreting liquid from their abdominal
glands. As workers mature, they become responsible for carrying and
storing food gathered by foragers. As strong adults, they forage for food
until they die.