Each colony always has just a single queen. She lives for up to five years, and in this time she is the only one to produce offspring and she controls her fellow inhabitants in the beehive using a physiological drug, the queen substance.
The male bees have a very difficult time in the bee community, not just because they are significantly in the minority. After they are reared in the spring from the unfertilised eggs, the drones’ only mission in life is to fertilise a queen.
The majority of bees in a hive are workers, without which the queen and drones could not exist.
These infertile females are only fed with royal jelly initially; later they have honey, nectar or pollen and a little water.