There are three different “castes” inside a bee hive:
- The “queen”: she is the only reproductive female in the hive, which means that all the bees in the hive are sisters. The queen’s body is larger than the rest of the bees in the hive and her primary function is to lay eggs……a lot of eggs! A strong healthy queen can lay around 2,000 eggs per day!
- The “workers”: they are all female but they are not reproductive females. Sometimes a worker bee can lay eggs, but these are not fertile eggs.
- The “drones”: they are all males and their only function in the hive is to mate with the queen.
If you look close in your hive, you will notice that the queen is almost always surrounded by workers, this is because the queen is totally incapable of take care of herself, so these “royal attendants” are surrounding the queen, feeding her and defending her .