Bee Life Cycle

BEE LIFE CYCLE

Bees are arthropods, invertebrate insects with jointed legs and exoskeleton, which go through a life cycle with metamorphosis, in which they have to go through several physiological and morphological changes to become a completely different animal. There are different types of metamorphosis, as it can be complete or incomplete, but in the case of bees, it's complete.

Egg laying

Bees start in an egg state stored in an apiary cell. These eggs receive multiple attentions from the community because each one will give rise to a newly hatched bee. For this, solitary bees have all their food supplies in their cell, while social bees bring the food they need to their eggs. If the bees didn’t take care of the eggs, the whole hive would be in danger.

Larva

3 days after laying the eggs, a larva emerges from them. These larvae must molt to increase their size to the desired size. During this phase they reach their maximum size (between 5 and 6 centimeters). Even so, the bee has no legs or external wings, because it doesn’t develop any function or activity inside the hive and simply limits itself to eating. It has a duration of 4 to 9 days where the bees open their cell.

Pupa

When the larvae become pupae, they grow wings, legs and stinger in the case of a female bee.This process lasts from 10 to 23 days, and during this time the bee does not ingest any food.

Adult Bee

When metamorphosis is complete, the new adult breaks the larval cuticle and is ready to begin its life as an adult bee. Depending on whether or not fertilization of the eggs has occurred, the bees may be born male or female. This is a process known as haplodiploidy system, in which, if the egg were not fertilized, a male would be formed; but if the egg were fertilized female bees would be born.