Bees live throughout the UK and are a common sight, particularly during spring and summer. Bees play a critical role in our ecosystem, as they pollinate flowers and plants, helping to keep the local habitat flourishing.
The lifespan of a bee can last anywhere from a few weeks to up to 5 years, depending on their species, role in the colony, environmental factors and more.
At Pest-Tech, we specialise in getting rid of bees without killing them, and offer live bee removal throughout Maidstone and Kent. Keep reading to learn more about the bee life cycle and how long bees live.
Factors That Influence How Long Bees Live
The bee lifespan depends on a selection of different factors, including:
- Species: Each bee species is slightly different, and has a different lifespan.
- Position In The Colony: Queen bees live the longest, while male drones die immediately after mating, and worker bees carry out energy-intensive tasks such as foraging for food, which can shorten their lives.
- Season: Most bees are born in spring and live throughout the summer, as the colony dies off in winter. However, some winter bees are born to survive the colder months and protect the queen while she hibernates.
- Environmental Factors: Bees prefer mild, warm weather, so heatwaves or unseasonable cold spells can reduce their lifespan. Also, habitat loss caused by humans encroaching on their space can cause bee colonies to die off.
- Predators: The presence of additional predators, such as birds, wasps and large spiders, can reduce the lifespan of the bees. Also, some mammals, such as badgers, mice and voles, will raid the bumblebee or honey bee nests to eat the nectar and honey, which can lead to a loss of food for the colony and lead to the death of some of the bees.
- Human Intervention: Bees have a barbed sting, which means they can only sting once, and the stinger will then rip out of the bee, causing it to die. As such, if humans disturb bees and they feel threatened, they may sting and die earlier than necessary. This is why effective bee removal and relocation is often necessary when bees build nests close to human dwellings.
The Average Lifespan Of Different Bee Species
There are more than 270 different bee species found in the UK, and each has a different function in the eco-system and can live a different length of time. Most bee species in the UK are solitary bees, which live alone and don’t build large nests. Social bee species, including honey bees and bumblebees, build large colonies, and the roles the bees play in these colonies determines how long they live. Here are some of the approximate life spans of some of the most common bee species found in the UK.
- Bumblebees: There are several bumblebee species in the UK, but as a general rule queens live for up to a year to establish the colony, worker bees live around 28 days to a month and male drones live just 1 to 2 weeks, as their entire purpose is to breed.
- Honey Bees: While honey bee colonies are similar in structure to those of bumblebees, these bees usually live longer. Honey bee queens live around 2 to 5 years, while male bees live 4 to 6 weeks, and worker bees live around 4 to 8 weeks. Winter bees live longer and protect the queen while she hibernates.
- Ivy Bees: A solitary bee species, ivy bees live for just a few weeks, usually around 6 weeks, as their entire purpose is to pollinate flowering ivy.
- Ashy Mining Bees: Another solitary bee species, ashy mining bees live for around 4 to 6 weeks, usually around March until June.
Bee Life Cycle Stages
Bees have 4 main life cycle stages, each with a different timeline and characteristics. Here are the life cycle stages of bees and what happens during each.
Egg Stage
Bees lay eggs inside the hexagonal cells in their nests. These white eggs take around 3 days to hatch into wasp larvae.
Larval Stage
The bee larvae, which look like tiny white worms or maggots, live between 5 and 9 days, depending on the bee’s status within the colony and species. During this time, the larvae eat regularly to grow and pupate.
Pupal Stage
Like many other insect species, bee larvae will pupate, or go into a cocoon, as the larvae transition into adulthood. The pupal stage lifespan is highly dependent on the bee’s status in the colony: it lasts around 12 days for workers, 14 days for drones, and 16 days for queens.
Adult Bees
Once the pupal stage is complete, the adult bees emerge and immediately start their allotted tasks, whether that is their mating flight, foraging for food or caring for the nest.
Bee Colony Members
There are 3 types of bees within the colony, and each one serves a unique function and has a different expected lifespan.
Queen Bees
Queen bees are responsible for breeding and growing the colony, and since they only leave to mate, queen bees live the longest of any type of bee in the colony. The can live up to 5 years in some cases, depending on their species and other factors. Generally, there is only one queen per colony, but in some cases, such as when the old queen is being superseded or during swarming season, when multiple virgin queens will be raised to ensure at least one survives, there might briefly be more than one queen in the nest.
Worker Bees
Worker bees are formed from fertilised eggs, and are sterile female bees responsible for foraging for food, building the nest and caring for the larvae. Worker bees make up the majority of the hive, but they generally only live around five to seven weeks, as there is a high turnover of worker bees and they carry out tiring tasks, such as flying a long way in search of food.
Male Drones
Drone bees are male bees from unfertilised eggs, meaning they inherit genetic material from only the queen bee, and have no father, in a process known as haplodiploidy. These drone bees exist exclusively to breed with the queen, and if they are successful on their mating flight they will die immediately afterwards. If drone bees are unsuccessful, they will often be cast out of the colony and die alone.
What To Do If You See A Bee Nest
Now you know how long bees live, you can see that bees have relatively short lives, but they can still cause issues during this time. As mentioned, solitary bees are much less of a risk to humans, as they usually build nests underground and live alone or in small groups.
It is social bees that can cause problems, as they build colonies and nests. Bees, particularly honey bees, are often mistaken for wasps, which can be more aggressive than bees as they can sting multiple times without dying. If you’re unsure if the problem is wasps or bees, then read our guide: What’s The Difference Between Wasps And Bees?
If you find a bee nest in a quiet area that’s away from humans, then it is best to leave it alone. Bees are a key part of the local habitat, and so if you can, you should leave them alone.
Bee nests in areas close to your property, or even inside it, can be a health risk, as they may sting if they get disturbed. Bees like to nest inside tight spaces, and can sometimes build nests inside roofs, attics, wall cavities and chimneys.
When this happens, you need professional support to get rid of them quickly and safely. Pest-Tech offers bee relocation services, to safely remove the bees and take them to a private hive where they can live safely without being disturbed by humans.
If you find a bees nest on your property in Maidstone or across Kent, contact us on 01892 871 008 or by emailing office@nightshiftpestcontrol.co.uk.