In the last series, we discovered about the fascinating lives of Queen Bees and Drone Bees. In this second series, we will now learn about the lives of worker bees, the most common type of bees found in the colony. Out of the twenty to sixty thousand bees in the hive, about 99% of them are worker bees. The main role of worker bees are to forage nectar from flowers and convert them into honey for storage in the beehive. Despite a short lifespan of two months, bees can visit up to 50,000 flowers in their lifetime, buzzing around outside their hives for 12 hours a day. This can often take its toll on their health, as many worker bees collapse and die in mid-flight due to physical exhaustion.
A honey bee hard at work collecting nectar from many flowers
After collecting a large load of nectar, the worker bee keeps these nectar in her stomach and regurgitates them in a honeycomb. With the help of the hive bee, another variant of the worker bee, the excess nectar is ingested again and partially digested through the enzymes in her stomach that break down the sugars. After a while, it finds a honeycomb cell and regurgitates the inverted nectar. The hive bees fan the nectar to evaporate its remaining water content by flapping their wings furiously. As the water is removed, the sugars thicken into honey. Once the honey is finished, the hive bee seals the cell with beeswax by capping it. These honey can be consumed by the Queen or Drone Bees who do not forage for nectar, or kept for the cold winter when the bees are unable to forage for flowers. Hence, honey is actually a dehydrated and modified form of nectar!
A bottle of honey, which is about a pound (454 g), requires that honey bees fly about 50,000 miles (80,000 km) and tap about two million flowers!
Besides the conventional worker bee and hive bees, there is another type of worker bee with a specialized role. These are called the scout bees. As its name suggests, their role is to scout for good locations around the hive with many flowers and convey this information to the other worker bees. They are also involved in finding new habitats when the colony decides to shift its home. After finding a potential location for food, scout bees return to their hive and start to perform an interesting movement called the waggle dance. The pictures and video below explain the features of the waggle dance.
Here’s a YouTube Video that explains and illustrates the wiggle dance:
Now that we have learnt the mysteries of the waggle dance, this sums up our second article for the series on honey bees! In the third and final article, we would find out more the additional job scopes that the worker bees hold and their interesting behaviour.