Three Types of Bee in Each Colony
In each honey bee hive, there are thousands of worker bees, hundreds of drones, but only a single queen, who is mother to them all. The queen is somewhat larger than drones and wokers, especially her abdomen, in which her ovaries are full of eggs. The ovary of the worker bee (shown here) is shrunken and normally cannot produce eggs. The queen's stinger is smooth and she can use it repeatedly, although she uses it only to kill rival queens just after she emerges as an adult. The worker's stinger is barbed-if used against an enemy with soft skin, such as a human, it may remain in the victim's flesh. The worker bee pulls out its own entrails in trying to escape and soon dies. Drones exist solely to mate with queens other than their own, thereby passing on the hive's genetic line. ßíäåêñ.Ìåòðèêà