The Bee: A Vital Part of Ecosystems

Bees are social and collaborative insects that live in hives, forming large colonies, providing human societies with honey and beeswax for thousands of years. This commercial use has developed the beekeeping industry, which is dedicated to raising bees, though many species continue to live in the wild.

With brains the size of a seed, bees perform remarkable interconnected functions to maintain the health of their hive. Within what we commonly call bees, there are actually three castes: worker bees, the queen bee, and drones.

Bees are much more complex than previously thought. A study published in 2022 in the Animal Behaviour journal suggests that bumblebees seem to enjoy rolling wooden balls, without being trained or receiving rewards, presumably simply because it’s fun.

"It shows that bees are not just little robots that only respond to stimuli... they engage in activities that may be pleasurable," said the lead author, Samadi Galpayage, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London (UK).

The role of a bee is determined by its sex. The only ones we typically see are worker bees. A single bee colony has about 30,000 to 80,000 bees, and almost all of them are worker bees. This means they are smaller females than the queen and cannot reproduce.

Only in some cases will worker bees lay unfertilized eggs, from which drones—much smaller than those born from the queen's eggs—emerge.

Worker bees live an average of 105 days—and do not leave the hive until they are 21 days old—and while this may seem like a short life, bees actually have a longer lifespan than other insects, with the duration of their lives depending on the role they play.