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In a colony of honey bees there is usually only one queen and her main purpose is to lay eggs so that the colony always has young bees emerging. In the summer, there are also several hundred drones (male bees) and their only purpose is to mate with a virgin queen. The rest of the colony is comprised of worker bees and they have three main jobs to do depending on their age. A worker bee is an infertile female and when they first hatch from their cell, their first job is as a nurse bee, looking after and feeding unhatched eggs and larvae. They do this for about 10 days and then become house bees, keeping the hive clean and clear of debris and storing the pollen ad nectar that has been brought in to the hive by the foraging workers. Again they do this for about 10 days and they then become foragers themselves, collecting pollen and nectar for the colony. They work so hard at this last task that after three weeks they have literally worked themselves to death and die.

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14y ago

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