Correct Answer - Option 1 : Male bees are very important for the hives.
The incorrect option is Male bees are very important for the hives.
- Every honey bee colony comprises a single queen, a few hundred drones and several thousand worker castes of honey bees.
- A queen bee is the only female bee in the hive that gets to reproduce.
- Worker bees are all female and are all offspring of the queen.
- Queen is a fertile, functional female, the worker is a sterile female and the drone is a male insect.
- Queen and worker develop from the fertilized egg while drone develops from an unfertilized egg.
- Further differentiation of queen and worker depends on the quality and quantity of food that is fed to the queen or worker larvae.
Explanation:
Male bees are very important for the hives → Incorrect (Worker bees are important because they feed other bees)
Most of the bees in the hive are worker bees → Correct.
There are only a few males in the hive → Correct.
Every beehive has one queen bee that lays eggs → Correct.
The queen:
- There is only one queen in a colony and considerably larger than the members of other castes.
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Swarming is the natural method that honeybee colonies use for multiplying their colonies.
- The old queen is killed as soon as the new queen is fertilized.
- The phenomenon of raising a queen in the off-season is called supersedure.
- The normal lifespan of a queen is 3 years.
The drone:
- The drones are male bees with no sting.
- They are much larger and stouter than either the queen or the workers.
- Their only function is to impregnate the young queen a task which they are unable to perform until they are about 10 days of age.
- They also help in the maintenance of hive temperature.
- The drones are produced by unfertilized eggs of the queen, or by those workers which take up the reproductive function due to the absence of a queen in a colony.
- The normal lifespan of a drone is 57 days.
The worker:
- Smallest inhabitants of the beehive.
- They are imperfect females incapable of laying eggs.
- Worker bees primary duties are cleaning, feeding developing larva once hypopharyngeal glands develop, ripening of honey, secreting/moulding of wax into combs.
- The lifespan of a worker is about 4 weeks during the active season and 8 to 10 weeks during the less active season.
- On certain occasions when the colony is in need of a queen, some of the workers start laying eggs from which only drones are produced.
- These workers called laying workers.
