Life in a Hive
A worker bee drinks water.
© University of Manitoba
Worker Bee
Worker bees are female but are not capable of reproducing. They do all the work in the hive, and they control most of what goes on inside. Their jobs include housekeeping, feeding the queen, drones and larvae, collecting the pollen and nectar, and making the wax. Because they work so hard, during the busy season worker bees live for only about six weeks.
Worker bees are shorter and more slender than drones and the queen, and their back legs have special baskets to help them collect pollen. Like the queen, they also have stingers, but they can only sting mammals once and then they die. They can, however, sting other insects over and over again to protect the hive.
