• A bee develops from a queen's egg in just 21 days. Three days after the egg is laid, a larva hatches, which is then fed by the other bees. About five days later, the cell is sealed with a thin wax lid. Over the next two weeks, the larva develops into a mature bee, which then breaks through the cell's waxy lid and hatches
  • A queen lives 4-5 years; she ensures the continued existence of the colony by laying up to 2000 eggs per day
  • In each colony there lives a queen, around 30,000 workers (depending on the season; around 10,000 in winter and up to 60,000 in summer) and 1000 to 2000 male drones
  • drones live...
  • The bees we see collecting nectar or honeydew are worker bees. They only live 30-40 days in summer or 6 months in winter
  • During its short life, a worker bee performs various, precisely defined tasks one after the other - first in the hive, then as a forager. If she dies of exhaustion after about 1 month, she has covered several thousand kilometers