Colony Life
Unlike a bumble bee colony or a paper wasp colony, the life of a honey bee colony is perennial. There are three castes of honey bees: queens, which produce eggs; drones or males, which mate with new queens and have no stinger; and workers, which are all non-reproducing females. The queen lays eggs singly in cells of the comb. Larvae hatch from eggs in three to four days. They are then fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in the cells. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larva pupates. Queens and drones are larger than workers and so require larger cells to develop. A colony may typically consist of tens of thousands of individuals.
While some colonies live in hives provided by humans, so-called "wild" colonies (although all honey bees remain wild, even when cultivated and managed by humans) typically prefer a nest site that is clean, dry, protected from the weather, about 20 liters in volume with a 4 to 6 cm² entrance about 3 m above the ground, and preferably facing south or south-east (in the northern hemisphere) or north or north-east (in the southern hemisphere).
Read more about this topic: Honey Bee Life Cycle
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