Worker bees

Workers are actually females just like queen. The only difference is the food they get. It takes 21 day for workers to develop from the egg to the fully grown bee. They are smaller in size than queens and don't have sexually developed organs, although in some circumstances they can lay eggs. In the case queen is injured or dead, one worker can take role of the queen but it cannot be done nearly as good as queen can. It can lay only drone eggs. First few days worker does cleaning and feeding older larvae. Then from fifth to tenth day it feeds younger larvae and places nectar taken from foragers. When another few days older it builds combs and does some hive cleaning. From day fifteen to twenty it does some entrance guarding and makes examination flights. Since day twenty it becomes forager, gathering nectar, pollen and eventually water and is doing it till she dies at day forty approximately. Bees fly as far as 2 or 3 miles (5-6 km) when foraging for food but for effective beekeeping there should be food source as close as possible to them so that they can do it more efficiently, and then in turn colony would grow stronger. Also if there is no water close to them you should bring them some, so that they can spend more time foraging.

Drone

There is not much to say about drones, because there is almost nothing they do. The only reason of their existence is to eventually mate with queen. And if they do succeed, they lose part of their intestines and then die. They may move freely from hive to hive and they have no stinger, only females do.

Bees and beekeeping - http://www.beekeepingstarter.com/droneworkerqueen.html


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