I can’t come to your site without checking out this little bee. She just makes me chuckle each time . . . evokes images of the end of a hard day, might have to order a small print to enjoy at home.

“There can be little doubt that a huge amount of pressure is exerted by the drone bees muscles, as it causes him to flip entirely off the queen bee. One of the major authors in the field described it figuratively as exploding sperm into the queen. And there is no doubt that the drones genitals break off and he dies within hours due to massive trauma. So it’s not like there’s a huge or visible explosion or anything.

The genitals are not even jammed in the queen… other males just pull the thing out, mate, and die themselves. A queen will typically mate with (and kill) between 7-10 drones, and sometimes up 17 or more. The queen has internal sacs that can store a volume of semen that would take eight drones to fill, so presumably anything after that is just for fun (for the queen).”

Much more info by googling beekeeping sites.

Is that what you mean by work? . . . and how do you tell the male from female? . . . by behavioral observations?

Thanks for the insight, always appreciate information . . . and WOW, only six weeks?

Recently learned about their “dances” . . . quite intriguing.

I can see the bee . . . his eyes heavy with sleep . . . just coming off the night shift . . . such industrious workers they are . . .

Love the way he looks like every blue collar worker after a hard shift . . . Good shot, Rick.