Why does the author describe the role of each honeybee? Social Order of Honeybees
adapted from NASA
O A
to show that that queen rules over the others
OB
to show that they have a structured social order
C
C.
to show how their bodies relate to their work
OD
to show the variety of life quality and length
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Honeybees are a fascinating species. They live
in hives within a very structured social order,
Each hive contains one queen, a few hundred
drones, or male bees, and the worker bees, all
female. Wild (feral) hives will contain up to
20,000 bees, while managed bees can live in
colonies of up to 80,000 bees. The main
purpose of drone bees is to mate with the
queen, and her sole purpose is to produce
eggs. The queen lives two to five years,
whereas the drones live only about 8 weeks. All
housekeeping tasks in the hive are performed
by the female worker bees, who make up the
majority of the hive. Most worker bees live
six weeks, except for those born in the
late fall. They will live until the following spring
bees have a barbed stinger that trips
of their abdomen upon use, which kills them, so
it can be used only once. The queen's stinger is
not barbed; therefore, she does not die when
she stings a rival.
about six
Worker
out