Bees are a diverse group of insects, with over 20,000 known species globally, performing functions that sustain both their colonies and the broader ecosystem. While many people think only of the honeybee, the majority of bee species live solitary lives. The jobs performed by bees vary drastically depending on their species and their role within a social structure, encompassing specialized reproductive tasks and an intricate, age-based division of labor.
The Roles of Queens and Drones
Within a social bee colony, the Queen and the Drones occupy specialized roles centered exclusively on reproduction. The Queen bee is the sole egg-layer, responsible for the entire colony’s population, sometimes laying up to 2,000 eggs per day during peak season. She produces a chemical signal called Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP), which is transferred throughout the hive by worker bees. This pheromone maintains colony cohesion, suppresses the reproductive development of worker females, and prevents the workers from raising new queens.
The male Drones have a single, short-lived function: to mate with a virgin queen from a different colony. They develop from unfertilized eggs and are present only during the warm active season. During mating flights, the Queen’s pheromone attracts the drones to specialized aerial congregation areas. A drone’s life ends immediately after successful mating. Those that do not mate are driven out of the hive by worker bees as the weather cools, since they consume resources without contributing labor.
The Worker Bee’s Life Cycle of Labor
The majority of a social colony’s population consists of female worker bees, whose lifespan is dedicated to an age-based progression of duties known as temporal polyethism. Worker bees spend the first half of their short, five- to seven-week summer life performing tasks inside the hive. Upon emerging from her cell, a young worker’s initial job is housecleaning, which involves preparing the cell she just emerged from for the next egg.
As she ages, the worker bee progresses to nursing duties, feeding the developing larvae with royal jelly and bee bread, a mixture of honey and pollen. Around days 12 to 17 of life, her role shifts to constructing new wax comb and processing nectar collected by older bees. Nectar processing involves repeated ingestion and regurgitation to reduce moisture content and convert it into honey.
The worker’s internal jobs conclude with a brief stint as a guard bee near the hive entrance, defending the colony against intruders. After approximately three weeks of internal labor, the worker begins her last phase as a forager. She flies outside the hive to collect nectar, pollen, water, and plant resin, sustaining the colony’s food stores for the remainder of her life.
The Role of Pollination
While foraging provides sustenance for the colony, collecting pollen and nectar results in the biological function of pollination. This process involves the transfer of pollen grains from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma, enabling the plant to reproduce. Bees are effective pollinators because their bodies are covered in fine, branched hairs, which easily pick up and carry pollen from flower to flower.
Some bee species, including solitary bees and bumblebees, utilize a specialized technique called buzz pollination to access pollen locked within a flower’s structure. Plants like tomatoes, potatoes, and blueberries have poricidal anthers, which are sealed except for a small pore. To release this pollen, the bee grasps the flower and vibrates its flight muscles at a high frequency, causing the pollen to be ejected onto its body. Since honeybees cannot perform this vibration, many agriculturally important crops rely on other bee species for fertilization.
Jobs of the Solitary Bee
The majority of the world’s bee species are solitary, meaning they do not live in colonies, produce honey, or have a queen or worker caste system. In these species, every female is reproductive and responsible for all labor required to rear her offspring. Her primary job is nest construction, which can involve excavating tunnels in the ground, or utilizing pre-existing cavities like hollow plant stems or holes in wood.
Once the nest is built, the female’s job shifts to provisioning, creating a series of individual brood cells within the nest. For each cell, she collects pollen and nectar, mixing them into a nutrient-rich loaf of “bee bread.” She then lays a single egg on top of this food source and seals the cell, providing all the resources the larva will need to develop independently until it emerges as an adult the following season. The total number of cells is limited by her short, active adult lifespan, which typically lasts only a few weeks.