12.4 Apiculture · Part 2

of the complicated machinery in the colony. Worker bee lives in a chamber called ‘Worker Cell’ and it takes about days to develop from the egg to adult and its lifespan is about six weeks. Each worker has to perform different types of work in her life time. During the first half of her life, she becomes a nurse bee attending to indoor duties such as secretion of royal jelly, prepares bee-bread to feed the larvae, feeds the queen, takes care of the queen and drones, secretes bees wax, builds combs, cleans and fans the bee hive. Honey bee uses its long-tube like tongue to extract sugary liquid called nectar from the flowers. The nectar is stored in the stomach and the enzyme invertase transforms it into honey. This increases the storage life of honey and also contributes to its medicinal value. XI Std Biology-Zoology Chapter- Then she becomes a soldier and guards the bee hive. In the second half her life lasting for three weeks, she searches and gathers the pollen, nectar, propolis and water. The drone is the functional male member of the colony which develops from an unfertilized egg. It lives in a chamber called drone cell. Drones totally depend on workers for honey. The sole duty of the drone is to fertilize the virgin queen hence called “King of the colony”. During swarming (the process of leaving the colony by the queen with a large group of worker bees to form a new colony) the drones follows the queen, copulates and dies after copulation. Structure of a Bee Hive The house of honey bee is termed as bee hive or comb. The hive consists of hexagonal cells made up of wax secreted by the abdomen of worker bees arranged in opposite rows on a common base. These hives are found hanging vertically from the rocks, building or branches of trees. The young stages of honey bees accommodate the lower and central cells of the hive called the brood cells . In Apis dorsata , the brood cells are of similar