AZ Pest :: Exterminators in Arizona

The four life stages of an Africanized Bee include egg, larva, pupa and adult. It takes about twenty-one days for a regular worker to fully develop from an egg, sixteen days for a queen, and twenty-four days for a drone. Drones usually live five to ten weeks. Workers usually live fifty days. All the workers are females.Queens live an average of one to three years. There is only one surviving queen bee in each colony. She mates with many drones (male bees), and may lay 1500 eggs per day. When the beehive is overpopulated, Africanized Bees swarm to a local area to start a new hive. Too much warm or cold weather may cause swarming. Only one queen bee will rule. When the two queens reach the adult stage, they battle to the death for control of the hive. The cycle of swarming continues until the hive is worn out. If you are in the path of a swarm of Africanized Bees, you have a seventy-five percent chance of a deadly attack. 

Visually it is hard to tell the difference between an African bee and an European Honey Bee,they are virtually identical in appearance. Look for these characteristics when trying to determine what type of bee you are dealing with.