Honey bee life cycle

Honey bees are tiny insects that live in groups called colonies. They are important because they help pollinate flowers, which means they spread pollen so plants can make seeds.

There are three types of honey bees in a colony: the queen, workers, and drones. The queen is in charge of laying eggs, and the workers are responsible for building and maintaining the hive, collecting food, and caring for the young bees. Drones are males bees whose job is to mate with the queen.

The first step of a honey bee's life is when the queen lays an egg. The egg is really small and looks like a tiny grain of rice. It's placed in a small cell in the honeycomb, which is a waxy structure that the bees build to live in.

After a few days, the egg hatches into a larva. The larva looks like a little worm and it spends most of its time eating. Worker bees feed the larva a special substance called royal jelly, which is rich in important nutrients.

The larva stays in its cell for about six days before it spins a cocoon around itself and becomes a pupa. Inside the cocoon, the pupa goes through a magical transformation called metamorphosis. This is where it turns from a little worm-like creature into a fully-formed bee with wings and all!

After about two weeks, the pupa emerges as an adult bee. If it's a worker bee or a drone, it's ready to start working in the colony. If it's a queen bee, it will leave the hive to mate with drones from other colonies and start laying eggs to create a new colony!

And that's how a honey bee goes from an egg to an adult bee!