Worker bees (with queen)

A worker bee is any female bee that lacks the reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee and carries out the majority of tasks needed for the functioning of the hive. While worker bees are present in all eusocial bee species, the term is rarely used (outside of scientific literature) for bees other than honey bees, particularly the European honey bee (Apis mellifera). Worker bees of this variety are responsible for approximately 80% of the world's crop pollination services.[1]

Worker bees gather pollen in the pollen baskets on their back legs and carry it back to the hive where it is used as food for the developing brood. Pollen carried on their bodies may be transferred to another flower, where a small portion can rub off on the pistil, resulting in cross pollination. Nectar is sucked up through the proboscis, mixed with enzymes in the stomach, and carried back to the hive, where it is stored in wax cells and evaporated into honey.[2]

Life cycle

Honey bee workers keep the hive temperature uniform in the critical brood area where new bees are raised. Workers must maintain the hive's brood chamber at 34.4°C to incubate the eggs. If the chamber is too hot, the workers collect water and deposit it around the hive, then fan air with their wings to generate cooling by evaporation. If the chamber is too cold, the workers cluster together to generate body heat.

The life span of a worker bee is generally one month,[3] although worker bees have been recorded to live for up to 2 months if born in the summer and up to 6-8 months when born in autumn or winter. The lifespan of summer worker bees can increase to 6 months if placed in a colony that lacks a queen.[4]

All honey bees start as an egg, which is laid by the queen in the bottom of a wax cell in the brood area of the hive. A worker egg hatches after three days into a larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first, followed by pollen and honey for six days. The larva then becomes an inactive pupa and is sealed in a capped cell for 12 days. The pupa grows into a worker bee during this time. As soon as the worker bee emerges, it begins its roles in the hive. (See below.) It emerges from the hive on the 21st day of its life. [3]

Type Egg Larva Cell capped Pupa Average Developmental Period

(Days until emergence)

 Start of Fertility Body Length Hatching Weight
Worker up to Day 3 up to Day 9 Day 9 Day 10 until emergence (Day 11 or 12 last moult) 21 days

(range: 18–22 days)

 N/A 12–15 mm nearly 100 mg

Progression of tasks

Cell cleaning (days 1–2)

Brood cells must be cleaned before the next use. Worker bees in the cleaning phase perform this cleaning. Cells are inspected by the queen and if unsatisfactory, they will not be used. If the cells are not clean, the worker bee must repeat the cleaning process.

Nurse bees (days 3–12)

Nurse bees feed the worker larvae worker jelly, which is secreted from glands that produce royal jelly. On days 6-12, nurse bees feed royal jelly, rich in vitamins, to the queen larva and drones. Drones receive worker jelly for 1 to 3 days until they are started on a diet of honey.

Queen attendants (days 7-11)

Queen attendants take care of the queen by feeding and grooming her. After coming into contact with the queen, the attendants spread queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) throughout the hive, which is a signal to the rest of the bees that the hive still has a viable queen.

Wax production (days 13–18)

Wax bees build cells from wax, repair old cells, and store nectar and pollen brought in by other workers. Early in the worker's career, she exudes wax from the space between her abdominal segments. Four sets of wax glands, situated inside the last four ventral segments of the abdomen, produce wax for comb construction.

Foraging bees (days 21–42)

The forager and scout bees travel up to 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to a nectar source, pollen source, or to collect propolis or water. Worker bees journey away from the hive around 10 times each day, with each trip lasting an hour.[5]

Worker activities in the hive

Honey sealing

Mature honey, sufficiently dried, is sealed tightly with wax by workers deputized to do this. Sealing prevents absorption of moisture from the air.

Drone feeding

Drones do not feed themselves when they are young; they are fed by workers and then when the drone bees get older they feed themselves from the honey supply.

Honeycomb building

Workers will take wax from wax producing workers and build the comb with it.

Pollen packing

Pollen brought into the hive for feeding the brood is also stored. It must be packed firmly into comb cells and mixed with a small amount of honey so that it will not spoil. Unlike honey, which does not support bacterial life, stored pollen will become rancid without proper care. It has to be kept in honey cells.

Propolizing

The walls of the hive are covered with a thin coating of propolis, a resinous substance obtained from plants. When workers add enzymes to the propolis, the combination has antibacterial and antifungal properties. Propolis is placed at the entrance of hives to aid in ventilation.

Some bees add excess mud to the mixture, making it geopropolis, such as in the bee Melipona scutellaris.[6] Geopropolis displays antimicrobial and antiproliferative activity and has been proven to be a source of antibiofilm agents. It also presents selectivity against human cancer cell lines at low concentrations compared to normal cells.[7]

Mortuary bees

Dead bees and failed larvae must be removed from the hive to prevent disease and allow cells to be reused. They will be carried some distance from the hive by mortuary bees.

Fanning bees

Worker bees fan the hive, cooling it with evaporated water. They direct airflow into the hive or out of the hive depending on need.

Water carriers

When the hive is in danger of overheating, these bees will obtain water, usually from within a short distance from the hive and bring it back to spread on the backs of fanning bees.

Guard bees

Guard bees will stand at the front of the hive entrance, defending it from any invaders such as wasps. The number of guards varies from season to season and from species to species. Entrance size and daily traffic also play an integral role in the number of guard bees present. Guard bees of the species Tetragonisca angustula and Schwarziana quadripunctata are examples of eusocial bees that have been observed hovering at their nest entrances, providing more protection against intruders.[8][9]

Genetic characteristics

In most common bee species, worker bees are infertile due to enforced altruistic kin selection,[10] and thus never reproduce. Workers are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee, but in most species will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three days of its larval form.

Gut bacteria

The workers perform different behavioural tasks in the colony that cause them to be exposed to different local environments. The worker gut microbial community composition is found to be associated with the behavioural tasks they perform, therefore also with the local environment they are exposed to[11] and the environmental landscape is shown to affect the gut microbial community (gut microbiota composition) of honey bees.[12]

Stinger

The stinger of a black honeybee torn off its body and attached to a protecting dress

The worker bee's stinger is a complex organ that allows a bee to defend itself and the hive from most mammals. Attacking bees aim for the face by sensing regions with high levels of carbon dioxide (like mosquitos). Bee stings against mammals and birds typically leave the stinger embedded in the victim due to the structure of flesh and the stinger's barbs. In this case, the venom bulb stays with the stinger and continues to pump. The bee will die after losing its stinger, as the removal of the stinger and the venom bulb damages or removes other internal organs as well.

The barbs on the stinger will not catch on most animals besides mammals and birds, which means that such animals can be stung many times by the same bee.

Other social bees

There are many types of eusocial bees, including bumble bees, stingless bees, some orchid bees, and many species of sweat bees, native to all continents except for Antarctica, that have workers. Workers in these other bee lineages do not show significant morphological differences from queens, other than coloration or a smaller average body size, though they are often quite different in their behavior from queens, and may or may not lay eggs. See the respective articles for these lineages for details.

References

  1. ↑ Breeze, T. D.; Bailey, A. P.; Balcombe, K. G.; Potts, S. G. (2011-08-01). "Pollination services in the UK: How important are honeybees?". Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. 142 (3): 137–143. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2011.03.020. ISSN 0167-8809.
  2. ↑ "Bee Life Stages". web.archive.org. 2006-12-31. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  3. 1 2 "Bee Life Stages". web.archive.org. 2006-12-31. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  4. ↑ Finch, Caleb E. (16 May 1994). Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome. University of Chicago Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-226-24889-9.
  5. ↑ "Bee Life Stages". web.archive.org. 2006-12-31. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  6. ↑ Adriana, Pianaro (2007). "Chemical Changes Associated with the Invasion of a Melipona scutellaris Colony by Melipona rufiventris Workers". Journal of Chemical Ecology. 33 (5): 971–984. doi:10.1007/s10886-007-9274-5. PMID 17404819. S2CID 32195400.
  7. ↑ Cunha, Marcos Guilherme da; Franchin, Marcelo; Galvão, LíviaCâmaradeCarvalho; Ruiz, AnaLúciaTascaGóis de; Carvalho, João Ernesto de; Ikegaki, Masarahu; Alencar, Severino Matias de; Koo, Hyun; Rosalen, Pedro Luiz (2013-01-28). "Antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities of stingless bee Melipona scutellaris geopropolis". BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 13 (1): 23. doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-23. ISSN 1472-6882. PMC 3568042. PMID 23356696.
  8. ↑ Segers, Francisca (17 January 2015). "Soldier production in a stingless bee depends on rearing location and nurse behavior". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 69 (4): 613–623. doi:10.1007/s00265-015-1872-6. S2CID 18594915.
  9. ↑ Couvillon, M.J.; Wenseleers, T.; Imperatriz-Fonseca, L.; Nogueira-Neto, P.; Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2007). "Comparative Study in Stingless Bees (Meliponini) Demonstrates that Nest Entrance Size Predicts Traffic and Defensivity" (PDF). Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 21 (1): 194–201. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01457.x. PMID 18021200.
  10. ↑ Ratnieks, F. L. W.; Helantera, H. (2009). "The evolution of extreme altruism and inequality in insect societies". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364 (1533): 3169–79. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0129. PMC 2781879. PMID 19805425.
  11. ↑ Julia C. Jones, C. Fruciano, J. Marchant, F. Hildebrand, S. Forslund, P. Bork, P. Engel, W. O. H. Hughes (May 2018). "The gut microbiome is associated with behavioural task in honey bees". Insectes Sociaux. 65 (3): 419–429. doi:10.1007/s00040-018-0624-9. PMC 6061168. PMID 30100619.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ↑ Julia C. Jones, C. Fruciano, F. Hildebrand, H. Al Toufalilia, N.J. Balfour, P. Bork, P. Engel, F.L.W. Ratnieks, W.O.H. Hughes (Nov 2017). "Gut microbiota composition is associated with environmental landscape in honey bees". Ecology and Evolution. 8 (1): 441–451. doi:10.1002/ece3.3597. PMC 5756847. PMID 29321884.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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