Girl Bees At Work
Courtesy of Howland Blackiston
The Colony
The population of a bee colony actually includes two different female castes (the queen and the workers) and the male bees (drones).
The Queen
Is an egg-laying machine, capable of producing more than 1,500 eggs a day at 30-second intervals.
The Workers
Are all sisters or half sisters, and are all daughters of the queen. They can lay unfertilized eggs that can only become drones, and carry out all major work in the hive.
So Yes, Only Girl Honeybees Make Honey
The Drone
He doesn’t forage for food from flowers — he has no pollen baskets. He doesn’t help with the building of comb — he has no wax-producing glands. Nor can he help defend the hive — he has no stinger. He is not the queen or a worker — merely the drone. His job? He mates. Procreation is the drone’s primary purpose in life, and they die immediately after mating with a virgin queen from a different colony.
Infographics from the Web
How workers can lay unfertilized eggs to produce drones, but only queen bees can lay fertilized eggs to become worker bees or future queens, or unfertilized eggs to become drones.