Being cruel to be kind

You'll have probably seen a number of different figures quoted for the maximum egg laying rate of a queen during late spring or early summer. One thousand eggs per day, 1,500+, 2,000 or more, or perhaps 'her own weight in eggs per day' {{1}}. Most of these eggs hatch and develop into workers. The number of bees in the hive is determined by the:

• Number of eggs laid by the queen per day
• Proportion of the eggs that hatch, develop and emerge
• Longevity of the emerged adult bees

I discuss all this in excruciating detail in a previous post.

The size of a hive

How does the egg laying rate of the queen and the longevity of workers influence colony size, and why is the statement that ‘workers live for 6 weeks’ wrong?

The ApiaristDavid (The Apiarist)

One of the points I made was that (summer) worker bees tend to have shorter lives than most beekeepers think. The oft quoted 'workers live 6 weeks, 3 weeks as nurse bees and 3 as foragers', overestimates the average lifespan of workers, ~50% of which die within 3 weeks of emergence, and ~90% within 6 weeks.

Whatever the precise numbers, in a hive at 'steady state' (i.e. the population is neither increasing or decreasing), the same numbers of workers a day die as eggs are laid by the queen {{2}}.

And, in mid-season, that's a lot of bees (or eggs).

If you look on the ground at the hive entrance you'll often see dozens (or hundreds) of corpses … workers that have died in the hive and been removed by the undertaker bees. This always looks worse in poor weather, when the undertakers travel only a short distance before ditching their cargo. It's likely that at least as many workers die out foraging.

Live fast, die young …