Social Order of Honeybees adapted from NASA moneybees are a fascinating species….

Social Order of Honeybees adapted from NASA moneybees are a fascinating species. They live in hives within a very structured social order. Each hive contains one queen, a few hundred drones, or male bees, and the worker bees, all female. Wild (feral) hives will contain up to 20,000 bees, while managed bees can live in colonies of up to 80,000 bees. The main purpose of drone bees is to mate with the queen, and her sole purpose is to produce eggs. The queen lives two to five years, whereas the drones live only about 8 weeks. All housekeeping tasks in the hive are performed by the female worker bees, who make up the majority of the hive. Most worker bees live about six weeks, except for those born in the late fall. They will live until the following spring. Worker bees have a barbed stinger that rips out of their abdomen upon use, which kills them, so it can be used only once. The queen’s stinger is not barbed; therefore, she does not die when she stings a rival.