A social bee is one that lives in a colony, along with other bees. The colony usually has a caste system, consisting of a queen, drones, and workers. Social bees live in hives or create their own nests. How many bees you’ll find in a colony depends on the species. In a colony, the queen is typically the bee who lives the longest.

A honey bee colonies are complex societies consisting of members of the same species coexisting together in a unit, each with a specific task to be carried out. Colonies are intricate social structures regulated by the queen and carried out by worker bees and drones.

A honey bee colony typically consists of three kinds of adult bees: workers, drones, and a queen. Several thousand worker bees cooperate in nest building, food collection, and brood rearing. Each member has a definite task to perform, related to its adult age. But surviving and reproducing take the combined efforts of the entire colony.

Honey bees are social insects that live in colonies. Honey bee colonies consist of a single queen, hundreds of male drones and 20,000 to 80,000 female worker bees. Each honey bee colony also consists of developing eggs, larvae and pupae. The number of individuals within a honey bee colony depends largely upon seasonal changes.

A hive is a house, a place where bees live. It is a structure, usually man-made, that a colony calls home. The colony is the family unit consisting of a queen, workers, and—for a few months of the year—drones. In other words, a colony lives in a hive.