The bee family is a complex, but at the same time well-organized and self-sufficient organism.
I will not delve into history, and the article is not about that. I can only say that bees, as a species, have existed for more than 200 million years. They survived the dinosaurs! For comparison: a man, according to scientists, exists only 200 thousand years.
Who lives in the hive?
So, the bee family consists of only three species:
- Worker bees are females with underdeveloped genitals;
- Drones are males;
- The uterus is a female with developed genital organs.
Now let's talk about everything in order. The life span of bees varies greatly and ranges from 30 to 270 days. It depends on whether the bee was engaged in intra-mongrel work, whether it participated in raising the brood, and whether it performed the function of a bee picker.
From its very birth, the bee has been working; it does not rest for a minute. Probably the proverb came from here. "Work like a bee".
Bee life
Immediately after leaving the cell a young bee carefully licks it. And not only ours but also neighboring ones, if required. So she prepares the cells for the future laying of eggs with the uterus.
3 to 6 days of life, the bees actively stand out wax plates, and she becomes a builder.
After 6 days of life in a still young bee, royal jelly begins to stand out, and it passes into the category of breadwinner. Larvae up to 3 days of life mainly need feeding. But the bees also feed them the uterus, although they themselves feed on honey and pollen - gruel.
At an older age, the bee continues to perform in-house work. In addition to the above, her duties include cleaning, guarding, receiving and processing nectar (future honey), pollen (future bee bread), maintaining the desired temperature and humidity inside the hive.
From the 8th day of life, the bee becomes flying. At first, these are short and familiarization overflights. They usually last only a couple of minutes. But every day they become more frequent and longer.
From the moment a bee becomes flying, its functions include the delivery of nectar, pollen, propolis and water. It would seem that if bees do all the work, why does the family need drones? Really just to fertilize the uterus.
About drones
By the way after mating, the drone immediately dies! His genitals remain in the uterus, and he himself falls dead to the ground. It’s good that I’m not a drone, probably, every man who reads this now thought)))
However drones play a very important role in the life of the bee family. Most of its time (23 hours a day), the drone is in the hive. He flies around for only one hour a day. Perforce, he is a real hot-water bottle for bee brood, the maturation of which should occur at a temperature strictly 36 degrees.
The body weight of the drone is 2.5 times the body weight of the bee. Only by his presence he frees two and a half bees from the need to maintain the desired temperature in the brood area.But this does not end its positive functions.
The drone is really so lazy that it is not even able to eat on its own. But, like any man, he loves to eat, so bees feed him.
The drone eats about 3 times more than its sisters per day. But at the time of getting a drop of honey from the bee’s goiter, the drone gives it the necessary elements that greatly prolong the vital activity of the bees. So, he eats his bread for good reason.
If the bees in the active period in the summer, the family can be from 50 to 100 thousand, then the drones are only from 500 to 1000.
Every hive has a womb!
The womb in the family is always alone! Throughout her life, the uterus feeds on royal jelly. Due to this, the duration of her life compared with ordinary bees is several times longer. She lives from 3 to 6 years and performs only one function - egg laying.
Mother from her, to put it mildly, so-so, because the whole mission of motherhood lies on the shoulders of bees. It is a mistake to think that the queen in the family is the queen. In fact, bees rule everything.
They want to feed the uterus, but they want to reduce its feeding, which in turn will lead to a decrease in egg production. And they will want to and at all will kill her, for example, when she is old or sick. And then they will bring out another one for themselves.
Well, here we come to the most important issue.
Who controls the bees?
How do they know how much to bring pollen or nectar, water or propolis, because they can not communicate. Why talk there, they don’t even tend to think, because they don’t have a brain, they live by reflexes.
Everything is governed by a general metabolism! Imagine this is one common stomach. Literally in minutes the bees exchange food from goiter to goiter, and along with it information is also transmitted about the lack of water, propolis or pollen. About violation of temperature and humidity, about the desire to release a swarm.
One bee is not a family, because it cannot survive on its own.
One hundred bees is also not a family. And even a thousand bees, this is still not a family. 10000 - this is the minimum required number of individuals for a full metabolism, information. From this moment, the collective brain begins to work, and the bee family can be called an independent, self-sufficient, highly organized organism!
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