Skip to content

Normal Honey Bee Development

A worker honey bee

Picture 2 of 8

The workers are also female but are not capable of producing fertilized eggs. They perform all of the work (except reproduction) necessary to keep the colony alive and thriving including: caring for brood; building comb; tending the queen; gathering nectar, pollen and water and defending the hive. The particular tasks that a worker performs depends on her age and the needs of the colony at a given time. There can be 20,000 to 60,000 workers in a colony depending on the age of the colony and time of year.