The development of a honeybee

The queen is the most important bee in the hive because only she can lay fertilised eggs that become female workers or, potentially, a new queen. She also lays unfertilised eggs that become male drones.

The queen lays eggs at the bottom of the hexagonal cells of honeycomb. The eggs hatch after just three days; they look like tiny white grains of rice at the bottom of the cell.

Larvae are the next stage in a bee's development. They are little white grubs in the cells. Larvae grow for five days in this stage before the bees put on wax cappings to seal the cells. Inside the now sealed cell, the larvae will pupate and emerge a fully grown bee. This stage takes 13 days for a worker bee. When a worker bee hatches she will start to work straightaway!

Left: eggs at the bottom of cells, these look like tiny grains of white rice. Right: unsealed brood look like half-moon shaped white grubs