> When you see a honeybee flying around, it's most likely which kind of bee?And the answer: Worker.Most bee hives have three types of bees: worker bees, drones, and a queen.Worker bees are female and make up 99% of the hive. They spend their livesforaging, creating the honeycomb, and filling the honeycomb with honey andpollen. In contrast, drones are male bees whose primary role is to help thequeen produce new bees. Photo credit: Unsplash.The honeybee is one of the most collaborative insects inthe world. Each hive is comprised of thousands of bees that work together tosustain a colony, each with a specific role to play. In other works, in thehive, everybody's gotta work to survive. But, with brains about the size of asesame seed, it begs the question: how does each bee know which job they need toperform? The answer can be found in the genetic makeup of each bee. The queen of the hivehas the unique ability to designate the sex of her offspring, which plays apivotal role in the bee's individual job. Female bees are created byfertilization from the queen, while male eggs go unfertilized. If she lays maleeggs, their sole role as drones is to mate with queens of other hives to helppropagate the species. In their off time, the drones eat honey from the hive andwait for a queen. Sounds like a very comfortable life!Meanwhile, female bees do most everything else. They keep the cells clean, carefor the larvae, build cells, tend to the queen, store honey, forage, pollinate,guard the nest, and even feed male bees honey (if they're lucky). Each bee isable to understand their job in the hive due to hormones which activate theirgenetic makeup, telling them what job to do and when to do it. Worker bees experience four phases of jobs in their lifetime. The first beginsonly about three weeks after birth, and consists of cleaning out the cell fromwhich they emerged. After about three days, their hormones shift them intonurse-bee mode, where they begin to care for and feed the young. A week later,phase three kicks in, and the workers become handymen (handy-bees?) around thehive, helping store honey and build. Finally, phase four is the foraging phase,which consists of leaving the hive to gather pollen to feed the hive. This isthe most dangerous phase for the bees. Learn more about the life of bees and the queen bee below.