How Do Honeybees Get Their Jobs? | National Geographic

the honeybee is one of the most collaborative insects in the world each hive is comprised of thousands of bees working together in order to build and sustain a colony within the colony each bee has a specific role to play a job these are jobs like foraging for food tending to young larvae and building a honeycomb but with a brain about the size of a sesame seed it begs the question how do bees know what specific job they need to do in order to keep a balance in the hive the answer is written into the genetic makeup of each bee and it starts with the queen bee who has the unique ability to designate the sex of her children which plays a pivotal role in their future if the queen wants to lay a female egg she will fertilize the egg by releasing spermatozoa that is stored in the spermatheca which sits behind her ovaries the spermatheca is filled during her first week of life when she mates with up to 20 drones or male bees if the Queen wants to lay a male egg she will not release any spermatozoa as the egg leaves the ovaries and drones have a singular job that job is to mate with Queens from other colonies to propagate the species when they're not trying to mate they eat leisurely from the honey reserves and wait for a queen to go on her nuptial flight female bees or worker bees do literally everything else they keep the cells clean care for the larvae build cells tend to the Queen store honey forage pollinate guard the nest and even feed male bees honey if they're begging for it each bee knows what to do because their hormones activate the part of their genetic makeup that tells them what jobs they have to tackle and when they have to tackle it they go through four phases of jobs before dying in phase one bees go to work immediately after they emerge from metamorphosis about three weeks after they're born they begin cleaning the cells from which they emerge after about three days their hormones shift them into nurse bee mode in this job they feed the young brood that succeeds them this lasts for about a week then phase three kicks in and the workers become general handyman moving farther away from the center of the hive and doing things like building honeycomb storing food and guarding the nest entrances this lasts about a week the final phase is the most dangerous it's the foraging feast where workers leave the nest to find pollen to bring home and feed the colony this phase starts around day 41 and lasts until about day 50 after a short life of constant work most workers will leave the nest as death approaches the corpses of those that die inside the hive are carried out by an undertaker bees it's a thankless life for the worker bee but this collaboration and process has made them one of the most successful super organisms in nature [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

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Id: 9ePic3dtykk

Length: 3min 22sec (202 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2019