Field Guide
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Honeybee
Apis mellifera
Not yet photographed by the community
The familiar domesticated bee; also found wild in tree cavities.
Species Profile
Not formally assessed under UK Red List criteria; however, honeybee populations face significant challenges from disease, parasites, and pesticide exposure.
- Lifespan
- Workers 5–6 weeks (summer) or 4–6 months (winter); queens 2–5 years; drones 5–7 weeks
- Size & Weight
- Workers 12–15 mm; queens 18–20 mm; drones 15–17 mm
- Habitat
- Gardens, parks, woodlands, heathland, and agricultural areas with abundant flowering plants and suitable nesting sites.
- UK Distribution
- Found throughout the UK, both as managed hives and feral colonies. Resident year-round, though activity is seasonal.
- Diet
- Adults feed on nectar and pollen; larvae are fed royal jelly and pollen by worker bees.
- Predators
- Wasps, hornets, robber flies, bee-eaters, badgers, and mice; parasitic mites such as Varroa destructor are a major threat.
- Mating Season
- Late spring to early autumn, with mating flights occurring in summer.
- Breeding
- Queens lay eggs in hexagonal cells; worker brood develops in 21 days, drone brood in 24 days. Multiple broods per season; a strong colony may produce 50,000+ individuals by summer.
- Behaviour
- Honeybees are highly social, living in colonies of 20,000–80,000 individuals with distinct castes (queen, workers, drones). They communicate through the waggle dance to share information about flower locations. Colonies are defensive near the hive but generally docile when foraging.
- •A single honeybee colony can visit up to 50,000 flowers in a single day.
- •The waggle dance, performed by forager bees, encodes precise information about distance and direction to food sources using figure-eight movements.
- •Honeybees are non-native to the UK but have been managed here for over 2,000 years and are now an important pollinator for agriculture and wild plants.
- •A queen bee can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day during peak season and is the only fertile female in the colony.
- •Honeybees are crucial pollinators, responsible for approximately one-third of the food humans consume, including apples, almonds, and cucumbers.
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