The Queen bee can sting multiple times as she does not have a barb. 

 

The female bee stings only once-the barb on the stinger the pulls venom sac apart from the body and the bee dies of dehydration.

 

The drone does not sting.

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Egg

 

The queen spends her life, after her mating flights, laying eggs. She lays around 1,000-2,000 per day. The deciding factor as to whether an egg becomes a male or female is based on whether the queen fertilizes the egg. If she does so, she has laid an egg destined to be a worker or a queen i.e. a female. Otherwise the egg is destined to be a male bee - a drone.

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Larvae

 

The distinction between the two female castes - worker or queen - is made about three days after the transition to larvae - about 6 days after the egg is laid. All castes are fed royal jelly in their first three days as larvae. That diet is then stopped for both workers and drones. For queens, however, the royal (jelly) treatment is continued. Interestingly, the effect of this is not to "promote" queen-like characteristics as we might imagine, but rather to inhibit the development of worker characteristics.

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Before the transition to pupa, worker bees will use wax to cap the cell containing the larvae, where it will remain until it emerges as an adult bee.

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Pupa

 

As the pupa stage is reached and progresses, the pupa within the capped cell starts taking a more recognizable bee form. Features such as eyes, legs and wings all develop and small hairs cover the bees body.

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Adult

 

Finally, at the appropriate time, the bee will chew its way out from the capped cell. As soon as the bee leaves the cell, worker bees will clean up the cell and prepare it for the next egg.

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Life Expectancy

The overall life expectancy of each type of bee also differs. Differences in life expectancy are depending on the time of year.

Queen

One of the most important factors effecting the queen's survival is the strength of the colony through the winter months. During winter the cluster of worker bees will protect the queen and regulate her temperature, even in the most extreme of conditions outside the hive. Their success in surviving until the spring depends on a wide range of factors, not least of which is availability of resources (honey) within the hive.

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Worker

The expected lifetime of the worker bee also has some complications. In the summertime, workers bees will effectively work themselves to death. If born from spring to late fall, workers will typically live around 6 weeks.

If a worker is born towards the end of fall or early winter, her role is quite different. These are the winter bees and they are to help the queen survive the winter.

Over this period the worker bee doesn't have the strenuous obligation - or even the option - to forage. For this reason, a worker bee can live up to 4-5 months through the winter.

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Drone

Drones have one thing on their mind - sex. They live for the chance to mate with a queen. The drone will mate with virgin queens and they will die after pulling away from the queen. If they don't mate, they will generally live around 5-7 weeks.

Drones really add little value to the colony. Drones don't forage or help with the production of honey in any way. But they do consume resources.

Workers are accepting of this during the summer, when such resources are abundant. 

However toward the end of fall drones will be evicted from the hive to die.

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Egg to Bee

All eggs are the same the first three days--then on the third day distinct changes occur.

Egg to Larva and Larva to Pupa have different times to emergence from the cell.

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• Queen: 16 days

• Worker: 21 days

• Drones: 24 days

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