What's in the cells?

The cells are the holes in the honeycomb. They are all-purpose cubbyholes for the bees. Kind of like your desks at school, they use them to organize all their stuff. What kind of stuff do bees have to organize? Lots of stuff!

These are the baby bees. Each baby bee gets its very own cell. They start out as tiny eggs laid by the queen in the bottom of each cell. After they hatch, they are worm-like creatures called larvae. The nurse bees feed them royal jelly, the shiny white liquid around the larvae in this photo. They get bigger and bigger until they pupate, or turn into a pupa inside the cell. The pupa stage is hard to see because as soon as a larva is ready to pupate the worker bees cover up its cell with a cap. Like this:

The cap on the cell is made of wax like the rest of the comb. It protects the pupa from damage. The pupa doesn't eat, so the nurse bees don't need to keep feeding it. Inside the capped cell, the pupa develops into an adult bee.

Here is a newly emerged honeybee. She has just chewed through the cap on her cell and is poking her head out for the first time. She is still very soft and cannot sting or fly for about 24 hours.

Two other things that bees keep in the cells are nectar and pollen. This is their food. The nectar (shiny watery liquid in the above photo) is made into honey. The pollen (yellow powdery stuff in above photo) is made into nutrient-rich food for the bees called "bee bread." Bee bread is just pollen that has been processed by friendly microbes, kind of like the bread that we eat. Our bread uses yeast (a microbe) to rise and taste good.

When the nectar is made into honey, it will have a lot less water in it. The bees cover the honey cells with a wax cap like they do for the pupating honeybee larvae. The cap looks different, though.

So that's what the bees keep in the cells- eggs, larvae, pupae, pollen, bee bread, nectar, and honey! Everything that the beehive needs is stored in the cells.

Bee larvae, emerging bee, pollen and nectar photo by Flickr user Max xx. Capped brood photo by Flickr user KrisFricke. Capped honey photo by Flickr user willsfca.