2. Honeybee A native European bee (Apis mellifera), the body of an average honeybee is about 14mm long and its pair of wings measures about 24mm from tip to tip when stretched. It has two mandibles and its mouthpart forms a tube when it sucks honey. The back of this bee is dark brown and its two membranous wings are greyish. A swarm of honeybees are made up of a queen bee, a small number of drones and tens of thousands of worker bees, which live together in a highly disciplined manner. The queen bee lays eggs usually from May to June. The number of eggs laid by a queen bee in a year runs to more than 200,000. But only one of them develops into a female capable of reproduction. Though all worker bees are female, they are sterile. They only feed newborn bees, make honeycombs and collect honey. They have functional stings. Their life span is 40 days. But they live for five to six months during winter. Males are produced from unfertilized eggs and are haploid. They die a month after mating.