![]() The Common European honey bee colony usually swarms only once each 12 months. New queens are produced and the old queen leaves with a large number of workers. ![]() Honey bees swarm primarily when the colony size gets too large for the available hive space or the queen begins to wane or fail. They are the only social insect whose colony can survive for many years. Honey bees are active pollinators and produce honey which feeds their young in colder months. Drones (males) appear periodically and have short lifespans, usually living for only a few weeks. During the summer, workers live for only about 5 to 7 weeks, but those emerging in the autumn will over winter. Older workers serve as foragers to gather pollen, nectar, and propolis or bee glue. The young workers care for the young or brood, build the comb, provide hive ventilation, and guard the hive entrance. The queen produces many pheromones, which regulate among other things the production of new queens and inhibit development of worker ovaries. She can lay as many as 1,500 to 2,000 eggs per day and may live as long as 5 years. ![]() There is only one egg-laying queen in the hive and she mates only once. Honey bees are social insects and live as colonies in hives, with mature colonies of 20,000 to 80,000 individuals. A typical colony consists of infertile females known as workers, males known as drones, and a queen.ĭuring the winter, the entire population lays dormant. The Africanized honey bee invaded the United States from Mexico in 1990, and by the beginning of 2007 was established in southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, western Louisiana, southern Arkansas, and central and southern Florida. The European honey bee is found throughout most of the United States.
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