Many animal species
structure their division
of labor so that females
stay home to produce
and raise the children
while males venture
out to collect resources.
Bees take this concept to the extreme. Only one female bee, called the Queen, remains in the hive to lay as many as 1,500 eggs per day.
The worker bees, those sustaining the hive in all ways other than reproduction, are all female. They either work at home (cleaning, feeding the babies, taking care of the Queen, building and repairing the honeycomb, and even guarding the hive) or out in the field (collecting nectar and pollen from flowers). Male bees, called drones, spend their time looking for other queens to mate with.
A bee’s brain chemistry determines the type of job that bee will have. In other words, they are hardwired to be security guards versus explorers versus homemakers. In fact, some species of bee like the honeybee change jobs throughout their lifetimes and so have to change their entire brain chemistry in order to do it.