How long does a honey bee live?
This depends on the time of year and the caste (worker, drone or queen) of bee. During the summer when foragers are working hard, their lifespan can be just a few weeks. Workers emerging (hatching) at the end of the summer will overwinter in the hive and can live several months into the next season. The drones only have a short lifespan as once they are no longer needed for mating with queens, they are evicted from the hive and die soon after as they can’t feed themselves. Queens live much longer, 2 or 3 years, but beekeepers usually only keep their queens for one or two years – the period when they are laying most eggs.
