The short answer: three castes, one colony
A honey bee colony is made up of three kinds of adult bees: one queen, many thousands of workers, and, during much of the year, a few hundred drones. People often call this the “hive hierarchy,” and it is a handy shorthand. It is also slightly misleading, because the queen does not give orders. The colony works more like a single organism whose parts specialize than like a chain of command.
| Caste | Sex | Typical numbers | Main job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queen | Female | One per colony | Lays eggs, releases pheromones that help hold the colony together |
| Workers | Female | Thousands to tens of thousands | Nursing, building, guarding, foraging, and most other hive work |
| Drones | Male | Hundreds in the active season, few or none in winter | Mate with queens from other colonies |
Numbers vary a lot with season, race of bee and local forage. For a closer look at population, see how many bees live in a hive.
The queen
The queen is normally the only fully reproductive female in the colony. Her abdomen is longer than a worker’s, which is how beekeepers usually pick her out on a frame. She is not a different species or a separate kind of egg: she begins as an ordinary fertilized egg and develops into a queen because the workers feed the larva differently, giving it royal jelly throughout its development.
What the queen actually does
- Lays eggs. In a strong colony in the active season, a good queen can lay well over a thousand eggs on a productive day. Laying slows or stops in the cold months in many climates.
- Controls the egg type. She can lay fertilized eggs (which become workers or, if raised as such, queens) or unfertilized eggs (which become drones).
- Produces pheromones. Chemical signals from the queen, often called queen substance or queen mandibular pheromone, are spread through the colony by the workers. They help workers recognize that a queen is present and help suppress worker ovary development. When the signal weakens, the colony may start raising a replacement.
A queen mates early in her life, on flights away from the hive, with drones from other colonies. She stores the sperm and uses it for the rest of her laying life. Queens can live several years, but many beekeepers and colonies replace them sooner because laying declines with age. If you are interested in how colonies and beekeepers deal with an aging queen, that is covered in our articles on the job of the queen and what happens when the queen leaves or dies.
Worker bees
Workers are female bees that do not normally mate. They make up nearly all of the colony and do almost everything other than egg laying and mating. Beyond that, the term “worker” hides a lot of variety.
Jobs change with age
A common pattern is that young adult workers stay inside and older workers go outside. The sequence below is a typical outline, not a strict timetable, since colonies adjust to what they need on a given day.
- Cleaning cells shortly after emerging, getting cells ready for the queen to lay in again.
- Nursing, feeding larvae and tending the brood.
- Handling food and building, such as receiving nectar, processing it into honey, packing pollen and secreting wax to build comb.
- Guarding, watching the entrance for robbers and other intruders.
- Foraging, collecting nectar, pollen, water and propolis. This is generally the last job, and it is hard on the bee. See how far bees travel from the hive for what that involves.
Workers can shift between tasks if the colony’s needs change. If many foragers are lost, for example, some younger bees may start foraging earlier than usual.
Lifespan
A summer worker lives for a matter of weeks, typically around five or six, with foraging wearing her out. Workers that emerge late in the season and overwinter live for months, because they are not raising large amounts of brood and not flying as much. This is why the colony can persist through winter even though no single worker lasts that long. More on that in the bee hive life cycle through the year.
Drones
Drones are male bees. They develop from unfertilized eggs, so they have a mother but no father. They are larger and stockier than workers, with large eyes and no stinger.
- Their main known function is mating with queens from other colonies. They gather in areas where virgin queens fly, and a drone that mates dies as a result.
- They do not collect nectar or pollen, build comb or defend the hive.
- Colonies tend to rear drones in spring and summer, when resources are good, and to remove them as autumn forage declines. Workers may push drones out of the hive and refuse them food. This looks harsh, but it saves winter stores.
If you see drones in the entrance in autumn, this is usually normal behavior. A colony still raising lots of drones late in the year, or one with a very high proportion of drone brood, can be a sign of a queen or worker problem and worth looking into at your next inspection.
Is it really a hierarchy?
Older sources describe the queen as the ruler. Modern accounts tend to describe the colony as decentralized. No single bee gives instructions to the others. Instead, workers respond to local cues: the smell of brood, the pheromones from the queen, temperature, how full the combs are and what other workers are doing. Out of many individual responses, the colony coordinates tasks such as foraging, nursing and defense.
Some things the “queen as boss” picture gets wrong:
- Workers can and do replace a failing queen by raising a new one, a process called supersedure.
- Workers decide when to prepare a swarm, and they stop the queen from laying as much beforehand so she can fly.
- If a colony loses its queen and has young larvae, workers can raise emergency queen cells from them.
When the roles break down
Sometimes the normal arrangement fails, and recognizing the signs is useful for beekeepers.
- No queen. A queenless colony may become unusually noisy or irritable, and brood stops appearing. If there are eggs or very young larvae, the colony may be able to raise a replacement.
- Laying workers. In a long-queenless colony, some workers’ ovaries may develop. They can lay only unfertilized eggs, so the resulting brood is all drones, often with several eggs per cell.
- Drone-laying queen. A queen that was poorly mated or is running out of stored sperm may produce a lot of drone brood.
Details on diagnosing and fixing these are best handled in the queen-focused articles. The key point for this page is that the castes depend on one another: workers need a queen’s laying and signals, the queen needs workers to feed and tend her, and drones are only useful when other colonies have queens to mate.
Frequently asked questions
Are worker bees male or female?
Worker bees are female. Drones are the males.
How do bees reproduce?
On the colony level, the queen lays eggs and the colony reproduces by swarming, in which the old queen leaves with part of the colony and a new queen is raised in the original hive. On the individual level, a young queen mates with drones from other colonies and stores their sperm.
Do all bees produce honey?
No. Honey is made by honey bees, which store it as winter food. Many other bee species, including most solitary bees and bumble bees, do not produce honey in the form beekeepers harvest.
What is the difference between bees and wasps?
Honey bees are generally hairier, and their bodies are more rounded, while many wasps are smoother and thinner-waisted. Honey bees feed their young on pollen and nectar, while many wasps feed their young on other insects. Honey bees also have a barbed stinger that usually stays in the skin of a mammal.
Key takeaways
- A colony has one queen, many female workers and seasonal drones.
- The queen lays eggs and releases pheromones; she does not command the colony.
- Workers change jobs as they age and as the colony’s needs change.
- Drones exist mainly to mate and are removed before winter.
- Understanding these roles helps you read what you see in an inspection.