Things Begin to Stir

Claire Waring describes the increasing activity within your beehive. Although it obviously depends on where you live and on the vagaries of the great British climate, things begin to move inside the beehive in March so now is the time to understand what will happen. Also find out how you can help them and other bees.

- Claire Waring

The increasing day length after the winter solstice stimulates workers to clean out cells in the brood nest and the queen to lay eggs in them. As the days get longer and the weather warms up, she increases her egg-laying rate.

The queen mates with a dozen or so drones and stores their sperm in her spermatheca. This has a valve which allows her to choose whether or not to fertilise the eggs she is laying. Both fertilised and unfertilised eggs are fertile and will hatch, develop, pupate and emerge as adults. Fertilised eggs develop into female workers and unfertilised eggs produce male drones. In early spring, the queen is only laying worker brood.

BEE DEVELOPMENT

Eggs hatch in three days. The larvae are fed by nurse worker bees and gain weight very rapidly. At the appropriate time, the cell is sealed with a beeswax capping, the larva pupates and in due course emerges as an adult.

The queen, worker and drone have different development times. Eggs hatch in three days. Queen cells are sealed six days later. The new queen emerges after a further seven days, 16 days after the egg was laid. For a worker, the cell is sealed after six days but the adult emerges 12 days later, 21 days after the egg was laid. The drone takes the longest to develop, the cell being sealed eight days after the egg hatches and the adult emerging 13 days later, a total of 24 days.

Queen larvae are fed royal jelly until the cell is sealed. They also receive food about ten times as often as other larvae. Workers and drones only receive royal jelly for three or four days before their diet is changed to brood food consisting of reduced levels of royal jelly components, plus pollen.