How Do Bumble Bees Reproduce?

Colony Structure

• There are three types of bumble bees -- workers, queens and drones. Workers are sterile females who leave the nest every day to find food. There is only one adult queen in each nest, though there are typically several larval queens who will ultimately leave the nest and establish their own colonies. Queens do leave the nest, but rely primarily on workers to bring food to larvae. Both queens and workers can sting. Drones are males who remain in the nest and whose sole purpose is to mate with the queen.

Larvae Care

• Workers provide food for bumble bee larvae, who require both pollen and nectar from flowers to develop properly. When a colony is newly-established, the queen participates in the care of the larvae and searches for food along with workers. Drone bees develop last, and when they do, the queen no longer leaves the colony.

Mating Behavior

• The queen and workers die in early fall, and new baby queens and drones leave the nest. The new queens mate with the drones, who then die. The queens store sperm and fertilized eggs in their abdomens. Queens spend a few weeks eating and storing fat in order to survive the winter and then hibernate in the ground. When winter ends, the queen emerges and builds a new nest.

Egg Laying

• Queens lay unfertilized eggs first, and these eggs produce sterile workers. When the workers hatch, the queen then lays fertilized eggs, which produce drones. The cycle of reproduction then begins again, with new queens hatching that will eventually leave the colony to produce a new colony.