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Cleaning
A beehive is one of the cleanest environments.
All cells need to be cleaned before they are reused for storing honey or new eggs. -
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A Worker Bee's Life
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Nursing and Serving
Worker bees must also care for the developing larvae. They feed them a combination of honey, pollen and royal jelly. The worker bees check on each larva over 1 000 times per day. -
Nectar Transfer
At some point, the young worker bee is responsible for receiving the nectar from a foraging bee returning to the hive, and putting it into a cell. She also adds an enzyme to it, which helps ripen the honey. -
Fanning
At some point, worker bees take on the task of maintaining the temperature in the hive. Some fan their wings to circulate the air inside the hive. -
Wax Making
Wax making takes a lot of energy. Bees need to eat 8 kg of honey to produce just 1 kg of beeswax. -
Guarding
Once a worker bee's stinger has developed, she can take on the job of keeping the hive safe. Guard bees position themselves at the hive's entrance to detect intruders (including bees from other hives), often by smell. -
Foraging
At midlife, it's the worker bee's job to fly away from the hive to find flowering plants and return with nectar and pollen to feed her hive mates, including the larvae. Bees use special dances to tell other foragers where to find good sources of nectar and pollen.
