Stages of Bee Development

The queen lays eggs concentrically from the center of the comb, moving in a spiral towards its outer edges. Each egg takes her about a minute to lay. She attaches the eggs to the bottom of the wax cells with a special secretion.

In a constant temperature of about 34°C and high humidity, maintained by the worker bees, the development of the egg lasts for 3 days. After this period, a white larva hatches. A few hours before hatching, bees place a drop of royal jelly at the bottom of the cell next to the egg. The hatching larva consumes it and grows quickly, continuously fed by the worker bees throughout its development, which lasts only 5 days. From the third day of life, the larvae are given a mixture of honey and pollen, except for future queen larvae, which always receive only royal jelly.

During these 5 days of development, the well-nourished and warmed brood (the professional term for bee developmental stages) increases its mass 2000 times, molting several times (shedding its exoskeleton that has become too small). On the fifth day, the bees seal the cell with a wax cap and do not disturb it until the larva transforms into a pupa and later into an adult bee.

On the sixth day, the larva consumes all the food reserves in the cell, straightens up, and molts for the last time, taking the form of an adult bee. By the ninth day from hatching, it starts to resemble an adult bee in shape but remains white. Inside, a process called histolysis occurs, where the cells dissolve and reorganize to form the organs of an adult insect.

For the next 12 days, the bee darkens, and its internal organs transform to support the life of a mature bee. This transformation process is called metamorphosis.

Workers called defenders…

On the 21st day of development, the young bee, only slightly lighter than its older sisters, chews through the wax cap and, with or without external help, leaves the cell. If a developing bee dies, other bees open the cell and remove the dead matter from the hive. They then thoroughly clean the cell and coat it with a layer of propolis. The speed of this cleaning process determines the bees’ resistance to diseases. More resistant bees simply remove the source of infection faster. This is known as hygienic behavior and is a highly inheritable trait in this species. Unfortunately, this trait is partially linked to the defensive behaviors of bees. In short, more hygienic bees are also more aggressive.

With each successive generation of worker bees raised in a comb, the comb darkens. This happens because the larva, just before transforming into a pupa, creates a cocoon, remnants of which remain on the walls. The worker bees clean such a cell from these remnants and cover it with a thin layer of yellow-brown-black propolis, which has strong bactericidal properties. With each generation of bees raised in it, the prepared cell becomes smaller.

Very old combs are completely black, while freshly built ones, called virgin combs, range in color from milky, almost transparent to slightly yellow. New combs built between or near older ones are usually darker because the bees sometimes steal materials from the old comb to build the new cells.