How many bees live in nature
Honey is a delicious and healthy treat thatcollect bees. But do you know how many bees live? This article will answer this question, as well as disclose the features of the life of "honey producers."
Insects in the life cycle have 4 stagesdevelopment: egg-caterpillar-pupa-adult. There are 10-50 thousand bees in the colony, which are divided into 3 social groups: the uterus, working females (sterile), male drones and developing young bees.
Uterus lays 1000 eggs a day, she is the motherall "melliferous laborers", and its life expectancy is up to 5 years. If we compare how many workers and uterus live, it turns out that only the uterus lives for several years, the remaining individuals remain viable for 1.5-9 months.
As a result of mating the uterus with the male, a2 sets of genes that are transmitted to female descendants (worker bees). Male drones are endowed only with sexual function, they are recognized as semicolumns of the uterus and do not have a paternal set of genes. If, when crossed, the beekeepers are fertilized with two copies of the gene of one allele, then sterile males appear, which are still being destroyed by working bees at the stage of larvae. With unsuccessful crosses, whole families may die.
On average, the working bee lives six weeks, butshe dies immediately, if someone stings. Drones do not have a sting, and they are larger than working individuals. They are looked after by the "hard workers". They live 2 months only because they must fertilize the young uterus during this time. If this does not happen, they are either expelled or leave the family themselves.
How many live bees that came out of the larvae on the eve of autumn? They hibernate to the spring in the hive, so the life span of such individuals increases and can reach 7-9 months.
"Honey laborers" have a very unusual feature - they can regulate the duration of their lives. It happens:
- in the event of an emergency (deprivation of the uterus);
- when swarming bees.
The lifespan of some individuals in thesecases can reach 150-200 days. Also, beekeepers noticed that with abundant supply of bee colonies by pollen, insects live longer. In a strong family, bees take care of each other, so life is settled there. But the main indicator on which the life of a bee will depend is its activity: the more work, the faster the individual becomes decrepit.
Thus, the life of bees depends on the following factors:
- time of year - in winter, individuals live longer;
- belonging to the social category - the uterus lives the longest;
- the strength of the bee family - in strong families the individuals live longer;
- amount of processed nectar - the more intensive the bee, the less the life span.
Before you raise bees, you need to know everythingpeculiarities of the life expectancy of bees, in order to increase the effectiveness of the work of the beehive. After all, to produce one kilogram of honey, the bee needs to fly out of the hive and visit the flower 20 million times. Of course, honey is made not by a single bee, but by thousands. But you need to take care of them and provide comfortable living conditions.
