Beekeeping
The queen is the only sexually mature female in the hive and all of the female worker bees and male drones are her offspring. The queen may live for up to three years or more and may be capable of laying half a million eggs or more in her lifetime. At the peak of the breeding season, late spring to summer, a good queen may be capable of laying 3,000 eggs in one day, more than her own body weight. This would be exceptional however; a prolific queen might peak at 2,000 eggs a day, but a more average queen might lay just 1,500 eggs per day. The queen is raised from a normal worker egg, but is fed a larger amount of royal jelly than a normal worker bee, resulting in a radically different growth and metamorphosis. The queen influences the colony by the production and dissemination of a variety of pheromones or "queen substances". One of these chemicals suppresses the development of ovaries in all the female worker bees in the hive and prevents them from laying eggs.
Tetragonisca angustula
Like many other stingless bee species, "T. angustula" workers take part in different activities based on their age. The average lifespan of the worker bees is around 21 days, but many live up to about 60 days. The first tasks that worker bees perform include courting the queen (surround her in the hive) and helping with oviposition (see section on nursing). Young bees (1 to about 15 days old) also assist with putting cerumen on brood combs and cleaning the nest. Foraging behavior starts about 16 days after a worker emerges and will continue for the rest of its life. Grooming behavior and resin manipulation are most common in ‘older’ bees, about 20 to 55 days old.