Honeybees Swarming Research Paper

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Honeybees are an example of a swarm because of the way a society of bees is able to reproduce and create a new colony. Honeybee colonies work together in order to survive as well as expanding in the idea of population as well as location. The swarming process is one that has been successful for many years for honeybees because of the way it enables the colonies to reproduce in an efficient and productive way. It also gives the bees the ability to move around and create new hives which then enables the honeybees to create new colonies which therefore expands their population. Swarming is an important part of honeybee survival because without it, the honeybees would be unable to reproduce and would therefore most likely go extinct if incapable …show more content…

In honeybee colonies, not every bee reproduces, the only one who reproduces is the queen bee. The queen bee of a colony is chosen by the worker bees. All larvae are fed a “royal jelly” that gives them the nutrients they need for the first couple days once they’re hatched. After those couple of days, all larvae, except the queen larvae, stop receiving the “royal jelly”. The heavy amount of “royal jelly” given to the soon-to-be queen bee enables the larvae to sexually mature. Once the larvae hatches and matures, the worker bees follow and protect the now queen bee (Seeley, 2010). Without a queen bee, a colony can not survive for the worker bees would not know how or be able to reproduce. The queen bee in a hive is the largest bee in the colony and has a very lengthy and delicate body. The queen bee is the only female bee in the colony that contains fully developed ovaries. The queen bee’s two main purposes in the hive is to keep the hive running smoothly and to lay many eggs, around fifteen hundred eggs a day (Buchmann, 2010). The worker bees do everything for their queen, so much that the queen is incapable of both feeding and grooming herself. The queen bee has a stinger but rarely uses it except for when she comes upon a rival queen. The queen bee is an essential part of a honeybee colony for without the queens, all honeybee species would be