The drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Drones are unable to feed themselves.

Several drones mate with a virgin queen on her mating flights a good distance away from the hive. Mating occurs in flight, which accounts for the need of the drones for better vision, which is provided by their large eyes. Should a drone succeed in mating it will soon die because the penis and associated abdominal tissues are ripped from the drone's body at sexual intercourse.

A colony begins to rear drones in spring and drone population reaches its peak coinciding with the swarm season in late spring and early summer. The life expectancy of a drone is about 90 days.

If there are any drones left before the hive "balls" for winter, the workers kill the remaining drones and remove them from the hive.

The queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive.

When one queen survives in a colony, she will go out on a sunny, warm day to mate with 12-15 drones. She will then have enough sperm to lay eggs for approximately 3years. She has only a limited time to mate, and if she is unable to fly because of bad weather and remains unmated, she will become a "drone layer."

Although the name might imply it, a queen has no control over the hive. Her sole function is to serve as the reproducer; she is an "egg laying machine." A good queen of quality stock, well reared with good nutrition and well mated, can lay about 2,000 eggs per day during the spring build-up and live for two or more years. She lays her own weight in eggs every couple of hours and is continuously surrounded by young worker attendants, who meet her every need, giving her food and disposing of her waste. They also lick her body for the pheromones called queen substance, that is shared among all worker bees and inhibits them from laying eggs of their own. Such eggs, laid by an unmated female, could only produce drones.

The Queens life expectancy is as long as the worker bees determine it to be. If the queen is still laying well in her 3 rd year, they will not supersede her.

A worker bee is a female honeybee which performs certain tasks in support of a bee hive. Worker bees undergo a well defined progression of capabilities. In the summer 88% of the bees in a hive are worker bees. In the winter, besides the queen, all bees are worker bees.

Cell cleaning (Day 1-2); Nurse bee (Day 3-11); Wax production (Day
12-17); Guard Bees (Days 18 - 21); Foraging bees (Days 22 - 42).