Honeybee Colony Composition:
- In a normal hive at peak season, there will be approximately:
- 300-1000 drones
- 25,000 older foragers
- 25,000 young house bees
- 9000 uncapped larvae
- 6000 eggs
- 20,000 capped brood incubating
Production
- In a lifetime, on average a honey bee produces 1/12th teaspoon (5 drops) of honey
- A bee must visit about 2 million flowers to collect enough nectar to make 1lb of honey
- Bees from the same hive visit about 225,000 flowers per day
Sugar and Energy Requirements
- Bees eat about 8lbs of honey to produce 1lb of beeswax
- Beeswax production in most hives is about 1.5-2% of the total honey yield
- The energy in 1 ounce of honey would provide one bee with enough energy to fly around the world
Pollen Collection:
- A bee spends 10-187 minutes collecting pollen
- A colony collects 40-125lbs of pollen per year
- Bees make anywhere from one to 50 trips per day to collect pollen, each trip can take up to 200 minutes
The Queen Bee
- The queen bee is larger, but more specifically, she is longer. Her lengthy abdomen extends out beyond the tip of her wings, giving her the appearance of having short wings
- The queen is fed every 20-30 minutes at peak brood rearing
- Queen larvae grow 1500-1700 times the weight of the egg
Can you spot the queen bee below?
All information included in this blog is attributed to the following source: Sammataro, D. & Avitabile, A. (2011). The Beekeepers Handbook Fourth Edition.