What is a worker bee?
A worker bee is a female honey bee that performs most of the work required to maintain and protect the colony.
Almost all the bees you see flying in and out of a healthy hive are workers. Unlike the queen, worker bees normally do not reproduce, and unlike drones, they perform many different tasks throughout their lives.
Depending on the season and strength of the colony, a hive can contain tens of thousands of worker bees.
What does a worker bee do?
Worker bees perform an extraordinary variety of jobs.
They clean cells, feed developing larvae, care for the queen, build comb, process nectar into honey, regulate the temperature of the hive, guard the entrance and eventually forage for nectar, pollen, water and propolis.
One of the fascinating aspects of honey bee biology is that a worker’s role changes as she ages.
The different jobs of a worker bee
During the first part of her life, a worker generally performs tasks inside the hive.
Cleaning the hive: Young workers clean cells after adult bees emerge. Clean cells can then be reused by the queen for laying eggs or by workers for storing food.
Caring for brood: Nurse bees feed and care for developing larvae. Maintaining healthy brood is one of the colony’s most important activities.
Caring for the queen: Workers surround, feed and groom the queen while distributing her pheromones throughout the colony.
Building honeycomb: Worker bees produce wax from glands on their abdomen and use it to construct and repair comb.
Processing nectar: Foragers bring nectar back to the colony, where other workers help process it and eventually store it as honey.
Regulating hive temperature: Workers can fan their wings to ventilate the colony. When temperatures are high, they also use water and evaporation to help cool the hive.
Guarding the colony: Guard bees protect the entrance and inspect bees attempting to enter.
Foraging: Older workers generally leave the hive to collect nectar, pollen, water and propolis.
How can you recognize a worker bee?
Worker bees are smaller than both the queen and drones.
Unlike drones, workers have a stinger. Their hind legs also have specialized structures called pollen baskets, or corbiculae, which allow them to carry pollen back to the colony.
When you see bees moving from flower to flower collecting nectar or carrying colorful pollen on their hind legs, you are looking at worker bees.
How long does a worker bee live?
The lifespan of a worker depends strongly on the season.
Workers produced during periods of intense colony activity may live only several weeks because foraging is physically demanding.
Workers produced for winter can live much longer. Their physiology is different because their job is to help the colony survive until conditions improve and brood production increases again.
This seasonal difference is one of the reasons a honey bee colony can survive even though individual workers have relatively short lives.
Are worker bees female?
Yes. Worker bees are female.
Both workers and queens develop from fertilized eggs. What makes a queen different from a worker is not simply genetics but also the developmental pathway and nutrition she receives as a larva.
Drones, by contrast, are males and develop from unfertilized eggs.
Do worker bees sting?
Yes. Worker honey bees have a stinger and can use it to defend themselves and their colony.
The barbed stinger of a worker honey bee can become lodged in mammalian skin. When this happens, the worker usually dies afterward.
Drones do not have stingers.
Why worker bees are essential to the colony
The queen is essential for reproduction and drones contribute to mating and genetics, but worker bees make the daily life of the colony possible.
They raise the next generation, gather food, build comb, defend the colony and regulate conditions inside the hive.
For a beekeeper, observing the workers—their population, behavior, brood care and foraging activity—is one of the best ways to understand what is happening inside a colony.
After decades of working with honey bees, I still find the organization of thousands of individual workers functioning together as one colony one of the most fascinating aspects of beekeeping.