How is a bee colony organised?
A colony has one queen who lays the eggs, thousands of female workers who do everything else, and a few hundred male drones whose only job is mating. Workers change roles with age: nurse bees first, then wax builders and guards, then foragers in their final weeks. The colony, not the individual bee, is the organism.
The full lesson
A beehive is a flawless city of thousands. Here, every single bee has a precise mission. There is only one queen. Her sole duty is laying over 2,000 eggs a day
to sustain the colony. The queen releases a unique pheromone. This chemical scent keeps the entire colony united and calm. Twenty-nine percent of the hive consists of female worker bees.
They handle cleaning, defense, and honey production. Worker bees change jobs as they age, starting with hive cleaning and nursing, ending with foraging.
Males are the minority. They have no stingers and collect no honey. Their only job is mating with a queen. In autumn, to save resources, drones are ruthlessly kicked out of the hive by the worker.
Bees don't speak. They dance. Special movements tell the others the exact direction and distance of nectar. Hive temperature stays at 35 degrees Celsius. Bees fan their wings to cool it in summer
and cluster to warm it in winter. No bee can survive alone. Together, they act as a single, magnificent superorganism.
This lesson is also in the app, along with the other twenty-nine.
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1:40Lessons and forum answers describe beekeeping practice and peer experience, not veterinary guidance. Treatment thresholds, inspection timing and disease management vary by climate, subspecies and local regulation. Diseases that are notifiable where you live must be reported to your national bee inspectorate.