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Types of Honey Bees and Their Roles in the Colony
Honeybees are eusocial insects. That means that they live in groups and divide labor among members. Bees are reliant on each other for survival. Eusocial insects show an advanced level of social organization. Some eusocial characteristics include cooperative brood care, overlapping generations within a colony, and specialized behavioral groups (castes). Other eusocial insects are ants and termites. While it is commonly thought that honeybees have 3 castes, technically speaking, there are 2 sexes and 2 castes. So when someone says that there are 3 castes, they really mean that there are 3 types (males and 2 female castes). The 2 sexes of honeybees are male and female, of course. The…
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How Many Honey Bees in a Hive?
A colony is the community of bees that live in a hive. But just how many honey bees are in a hive? This is a question that isn’t so easy to answer in exact figures. There are statistically accurate estimates that vary with the size of the hive. So, without talking about specifics, let’s look at how many honey bees typically live in a hive. A single honey bee colony could consist of anywhere from 10,000 to well over 60,000 bees. The hive often functions as a single organism with the majority of members being female worker bees who are all often offspring of the same queen bee. Determining the…
