The Life Span of a Drone To be able to mature, a male drone goes through the hatching process, feeding, incubating

and breaking out of its cell. The process is quite lengthy but it needs to go through it. Most of the times, a male drone is inside the hive. It only goes out on peculiar instances. Day 12 to Day 14 - At this stage, a male drone is full-grown and is capable of producing off-spring through mating with a female drone or bee. This is also the time in which male drones gather together in the hive. If a queen bee is set for mating, it will discharge a substance which is often called as pheromone to attract a male drone among those who are gathered in the hive. Autumn - The task of a drone in mating with the queen bee is fatal because after a successful copulation, the male drone lost its life. Worker bees then take out the dead drone from the hive or eliminate other drones. The male drones were gathered in the colony so that the queen can generate fertilized eggs after mating. As mentioned, worker bees are tasked to eliminate or send away drones from the hive after the queen bee have victoriously mate with one of them. Once a queen bee had finished mating with the chosen drone, all other drones are dismissed. The Life of a Queen Bee Day 1 - Queen Bees begin coming out of their sealed cells. Others mingled with other queen cells inside the hive. Some sealed cells are abolished so that the hive will not be overcrowded. Day 1 to Day 5 - At this stage, queen bees learn how to fly. Their capacity to fly is developed fully by flying outside the hive.

Week 1 to week 5 - A group of drones is gathered together in the hive, the queen then selects one of them for a mate by discharging a pheromone substance. After a successful mating, the selected drone lost its life. When two to four days have passed, the queen bee begins to lay eggs. Along the process, an added pheromone substance is also formed. This added pheromone substance is released to make known to the whole hive that a queen bee is laying its eggs. The pheromone is a hint to the worker bees that they should be more vigilant in the creation of queen bee cells so that queen bee which is laying eggs will not be disturbed. The queen bee is, most of the time, responsible in producing pheromones. When its life is over, the production of pheromones is also stopped. Pheromones help the whole population of bees in various manners, so when the queen reached its death, the rest of the bees are twitchy. They need to declare the next queen bee so they will select from among the fertilized eggs laid by the previous queen bee. In case the queen bee is ailed, there is also a big possibility that it be replaced by a new queen bee. A queen bee enjoys being a queen for five years, after that it will usually be replaced by a new queen. Sometimes, an aspiring queen bee is to fight the previous queen bee. If the aspiring queen wins, it will be declared as the new queen bee.