This looked like a nice place for an easy cache for the kids (watch for the bees (they are in a fenced in area)). I placed a little bee nearby to watch the hives. BYOP but there is room for some swag.
Honey Bee Life Cycle
There are different types of bees in the hive and they play a different role in colony.
For example, a queen honey bee is reared differently from worker honey bees and drones, and has a much longer life span than either.
Honey bee queens may live for up to four or five years. Unlike other members of the colony, she remains within the bee hive almost all of her life, producing thousands of eggs, until she eventually produces a replacement queen. However, this is not the end of the life of the current queen. The existing queen will take off in a swarm with part of the colony, in order to establish a new nest, and more generations of honey bees.
The queen honey bee's life will only be cut short due to disease or mishap, or possibly she will be replaced by the colony if she lays too few eggs and is therefore under-performing for the colony.
Drones and workers, will live for only a few weeks, but possibly a few months, depending on their role in the colony and the time of year when they were born.
In any event, honey bee colonies in themselves, go through cycles. From the beginning when they are first establishing the colony in a new bee hive, the colony will go through the processes of:
· building combs,
· gathering nectar and rearing brood,
· producing a new honey bee queen,
· swarming,
· finding a new nest or introduction into a new bee hive.
* BYOP
