How do Bees Organize their Hive?

 Rilwanu sent me a message by using the ask a beekeeper part of this website. If anyone has a question let me know and I'll do my best to answer it. Rilwanu wrote:

How "do bees organize?"

Running a hive takes a lot of work. Just like humans, bees will work together to get their job done. Here are a couple of things that help keep them organized.

1. Storage- Bees also organize their home. they keep some honey and pollen near the babies who need it most, and extra honey is stored for later in another part of the hive. All of the brood or babies live together in the same part of the hive.
2. Chores- I know that organizing a home is a job for the whole family and it helps when we have our own responsibilities or chores. At my house it is my job to cook and get groceries and my husband maintains and fixes the house. Bees also have different chores or jobs for different family members.
   
3. Communication- To keep our days running smoothly my husband and I communicate about things we want to do and our goals. Bees also use their own language to help their sisters find what they need.

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Hive Layout- A Place for Honey, Pollen, Surplus, and the Brood

Here are some photos of comb with different things stored in its cells. Can you see how the pollen is separated from the larva and capped brood. Each thing has it's own place.

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Chores- A Family of 40,000 or 60,000 to Help Around the House

Each hive is made up of one very large family. As a family they have different responsibilities to help one another and care for the younger sisters and brothers. People have studied bees for hundreds of years and scientists still don't understand exactly how bees organize their hive. We are still learning how they work and stay so organized here are the basics of what we know:

Queen

• The queen is the mother of the hive
• There is only one queen in the hive
• she leads all the other bees in the hive and she lays and fertilizes eggs

Brood

• brood are the babies of the hive 
• there are many eggs, larva, and pupa growing in the hive
• they don't have a lot of responsibility since it is a lot of work just to turn into an adult insect

Drones

• drones are the brothers and eventually become fathers
• they are the only boys in the hive and there are not many of them
• their only responsibility is to mate with the queen

Workers

• all of the workers are sisters
• workers are the girls in the hive that do all the work
  
• workers have many jobs throughout their lives, they clean, care for the brood, build comb, guard the hive, and forage. 

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Communication- Helping Your Sister Find Some Food

Bees have their own language that is very different from our own. They dance to tell others where nectar and pollen are, how much there is, and if it is high quality. Here is a short clip about the waggle dance. This bee is using it to tell others where a new home could be, but bees also use this dance to tell others where to get nectar.

Watch The Waggle Dance on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.