A Bee's Lifecycle

 

And you probably already know what complete metamorphosis is even if you are unfamiliar with this exact term! A better known example of an insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis is butterflies. So, complete metamorphosis has four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. We will go over what all the different stages look like in bees.

​

Bees start their nests sheltered spaces. This because bee eggs are fragile and need protection from the elements. Where adult female bees choose to lay their eggs depends on the species. Each nest will consist of a few cells to hundreds of cells. The cells are completely enclosed spaces created by bees that are used for brood rearing purposes. The species of bee will determine what materials they make the cells out of. Some cell building materials include wax, soil, leaves, wool, resin, wood pulp, or protective secretions 1. The number of eggs a female will lay in her lifetime also depends on the species. Some bee species lay fewer than eight eggs in their lifetime whereas some species lay millions. Bees are haplodiploid which means that fertilized eggs develop into females and eggs that aren't fertilized develop into males. In some bees, there are also queens and soldiers; we will touch on those bees later. When the egg hatches, what pops out is not a bee, but a larvae.

​

Bee larva stay in their cell for the duration of this stage 1. Like caterpillars in butterflies, bee larvae do not have a hard shell but are soft and look like small pale grubs. Larva eat the food provisioned by females in their cells in this stage and do not forage for themselves. Solitary bees, which make up the large majority of bees, provide something known as bee bread to larva. Bee bread is a mixture of pollen- which provides protein, lipids, and nutrients- and flower nectar, which is used as a binding agent and provides some carbohydrates 2. Bees who offer their larva different diets are detailed below. In this stage, the wings are slowly developing internally. After the larval stage, bees prep for their larval stage.

​

After the larval stage is complete, bees start to pupate.  Most bees spin a cocoon around themselves made of silk! The silk they produce from their silk glands is very sturdy and some social bees reuse this silk in their colonies 3. There are some bees that have lost the ability to spin silk cocoons, and are instead protected by the cell lining secreted by their mother 1. It is during this phase that bees gain the recognizable features of adult bees. After a bee has gone through its pupal stage, it emerges from it's enclosed cell as an adult bee. 

​

When adult bees emerge from their pupa, chew their way out of their cocoon and enclosed cell with their chewing mouthparts 1. After female bees emerge, males will attempt to mate with the females, and the life cycle of a bee continues. Whether or not bees only produce one brood per year or more depends on the bee and the climate. Some species of adult bees can live for more than one year, while others live and die in a yearly cycle. 

​