The bee is a social insect belonging to the class Insecta and phylum Arthropoda. It does a great help to human being by producing wax and honey and pollinating the plants. The bees, in groups collect honey from flower to flower and store in their comb. Men collect these honeys and wax from the honeycomb and use it .in different ways. But it is dangerous to collect honey and wax from the comb ‘as the bees are capable to attack by stings located in their abdomen.
Castes of bees: In a hive or in the residence of bees these are three kinds of bees having different structure and function.
(a) Queen bee
(b) Male or king bee
(c) Worker bee
These three kinds of bees live together in the hive and do their own work independently:
(a) Queen bee: The queen is larger than the other bees. Laying eggs is the only function of the queen and she lays about 1500 eggs per day. Their life span is of three years. Each hive contains only one active queen bee. If any new queen is born in the hive, the old queen kills her by stinging.
(b) Male or king bees: In a hive there may be a few male bees which take part in reproduction only. They are sting less and they do not collect honey.
(c) Worker bees: As a matter of fact, they are female bees but they are sterile and do not lay eggs. Their function is to collect honey, to look after the king, queen and larvae and to defend the hive from the enemies by stinging, to do overall supervision of the combs. They clean the chambers of the comb and produce new chambers by secreting wax from the body. Adult workers collect honey, pollen grains from the flowers to flowers and store in the comb. The workers pollinate flowers indirectly when they roam about at the time of collecting honey and pollen grains. Due to pollination by bees, it is possible to produce many crops. and the production of many crops increases by 20-25%.
