European stock
The colony is the unit. Swarming is how it reproduces.
The managed bee in a Florida box is a western honey bee, Apis mellifera. European Honey Bee is the UF/IFAS Featured Creatures page. Mortensen, Schmehl, and Ellis. None of the subspecies are native here. Settlers brought European races in 1622. The United States mix this paper names is Italian, Carniolan, German black, Caucasian, and Iberian stock. African scutellata arrived in the Americas in the late 1950s. You cannot eyeball the difference. This page is the European biology Choosing the Right Pest Control Operator for Honey Bee Removal points at when a nest is in a wall.
All worker honey bees die after stinging, and European honey bees rarely sting without provocation.
Three castes, three clocks
Unfertilized eggs become drones. Fertilized eggs become females. A female larva on the usual diet becomes a worker. A female larva on royal jelly becomes a queen. The European Honey Bee paper: egg to adult is about 24 days for a drone, 21 for a worker, 15 to 16 for a queen. Eggs are 1 to 1.5 mm, a grain of rice in a wax cell, and they hatch on day three. Open brood is the larva. Capped brood is the pupa. Seeing eggs means a laying queen is in the box.
The queen is the usual egg layer, up to 1,500 a day on this paper. Her stinger has reduced barbs, so she does not die when she uses it. A worker has a barbed stinger that tears out with the poison sac. That kills her. Drones have larger eyes that meet at the top of the head and a blunt abdomen. They do not sting. Their job is to mate with a virgin from another colony.
Workers change jobs by age. Youngest tend brood. Older bees build comb, move stores, and guard. Oldest forage. That is the bee on a flower. Pollen rides in the corbicula on the hind legs. Wax scales come off the underside of the abdomen. A marking pen for a queen you need to find again on a white 2026 thorax. Get this. The paper's photo is a dab of paint on the thorax, not a shop costume.
One swarm a year, if the flow holds
the European Honey Bee paper treats the colony as the biological unit. Making more bees is not reproduction. Making another colony is. European stock in this paper typically swarms once a year, in spring and early summer when pollen and nectar are plentiful. The colony raises 10 to 20 daughter queens. When those queens are late pupae, the mother queen and about two-thirds of the adult workers leave. They hang while scouts look for a cavity. The remaining daughters fight until one lives, or the first out kills the rest in their cells. She mates with about 15 drones in the first two weeks, in the air, and stores the sperm for life. swarming is the stay-back cluster page.
That hoarding is why European stock is the honey bee people extract. Nectar becomes honey in the comb and stays there, capped. African stock on the sister paper stores less and swarms more. European vs African bees is the guard table. Do not pick race from a porch photo.
A wall nest is still a hire
the European Honey Bee paper: a feral swarm that sets up in a house wall, a mailbox, or any place people walk past is a nuisance colony. Call a trained operator or a beekeeper. hive removal is that hire page. bee-proofing is closing the empty hole afterward. A Langstroth super is the usual United States box on this paper. Interchangeable. Removable frames. It is not a wall repair. Get this.
Morphometrics and genetics separate European from African stock in a lab. Wing venation and body size. You will not do that in the driveway. Africanized honey bees already say that.
Did a worker just die on my arm?
If she stung and left the barb, yes. The European Honey Bee paper: the sting tears out with the poison sac. European workers rarely sting without a reason. A nest too close is the usual reason.
Is the $15 billion figure a Florida number?
the European Honey Bee paper cites an estimate that bees pollinate up to $15 billion of United States crops a year, and more than 30 percent of the food people eat. It is a national pollination line, not an Orange County harvest total.
Sources
- European Honey Bee. Mortensen, Schmehl, and Ellis. Castes, swarming, nuisance nests.
- Choosing the Right Pest Control Operator for Honey Bee Removal. The hire page this species profile points at.
- Swarm Control for Managed Beehives. The hanging cluster, not the wall nest.