The life of all honeybees starts as an egg, about the size of a comma. This egg is laid by the queen in the bottom of a wax cell in the hive.
A worker egg hatches after 3 days into a larva. Nurse bees feed it royal jelly at first, then pollen & honey for 6 days. It then becomes an inactive pupa.
During its 14 days as a pupa, sealed in a capped cell, it grows into a worker female bee, emerging on the 20th day. Workers do everything but lay eggs and mate.
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
