The Four Stages of Development
Honey bees go through four distinct stages to grow from an egg into an adult:
- Egg: The queen lays a single tiny, rice-grain-like egg into a beeswax cell. This stage lasts about 3 days.
- Larva: The egg hatches into a legless, grub-like larva. Worker bees feed it continuously, and the larva molts several times (growing through stages called instars) before the cell is capped with wax. This stage lasts about 5 to 6 days.
- Pupa: Inside the sealed wax cell, the larva spins a cocoon and undergoes transformation (metamorphosis), developing legs, eyes, wings, and body segments. This stage lasts about 8 to 14 days depending on whether the bee is a worker, drone, or queen.
- Adult: The fully formed adult bee chews its way out of the wax capping to join the hive.
You can read more about the timeline on The Best Bees Company or the Honey Bee Life Cycle Guide.