A 10 Frame Honey Bee Colony will consist of a bottom board, Brood Chamber (medium or typically deep), and a top cover. It will contain 10 frames for the Honey Bees to perform their duties while working within the hive. A colony will contain a Mated Queen and bees and Brood of all stages in their life cycle. There will be a combination of frames with eggs, brood, pollen, nectar, and honey in a typical 10 frame Hive.
Honey bees are social insects that live in colonies. Honey bee colonies consist of a single queen, hundreds of male drones, and 20,000 to 80,000 female worker bees. Each honey bee colony also consists of developing eggs, larvae, and pupae.
Honey bee colonies depend upon a diversity of population for survival, as each caste of bee performs specific tasks.
All members of a honey bee colony undergo complete metamorphosis, passing through the egg, larval and pupal stages before becoming adults.
Queens are the only members of a colony able to lay fertilized eggs and a good queen can lay up to 2000 eggs a day. They are capable of living up to five years, they only often only live two to three years producing eggs.
Worker honey bees are the largest population within a colony and are entirely female but are unable to produce fertilized eggs. They do sometimes lay unfertilized eggs, which become male drones. The average life span of worker bees is approximately six weeks.
Drones, or male honey bees, have only one task: to fertilize new queens.
We do not ship Queens, Packages, or Nucleus Hives of Honey Bees.
