How Long Do Honeybees Live Without a Hive?

Our world depends on honeybees. They pollinate much of our food plants, and without them the ecosystem would collapse. Honeybees have a deeply complex interaction with one another that is called a superorganism. They cannot survive without one another, and they cannot long survive without a hive.

  1. The Hive and the Honeybee

    • The modern beehive is designed for the bees' comfort.

      A beehive is a honeybee's choice of dwelling place, whether it is a hollow log, a cave or a bee box built by a beekeeper. Inside there will live up to 100,000 bees. Bees are too small to live alone, but as a colony they form one superorganism that enables the hive to survive and thrive. There are many reasons for bees to become homeless. A bear may come along to dine on the larvae, a swarm may leave home to set up housekeeping elsewhere or a single worker bee may get lost.

    Forced from Home

    • A destroyed hive will be demoralized and die within a few days. Immediately after the marauder leaves, the survivors will cluster around the queen, staying close to their former home. If the hive is not smashed too badly, they will gather in what shelter they have, but unless the beekeeper re-hives the colony they will not survive. Even if this happens, the queen will be so upset about the hive that she will die and the colony will have to be re-queened.

    Leaving Home

    • Bees swarm to find a new home.

      A swarm will survive for several days because they have filled up with honey before leaving the hive. Swarming is a natural and normal way for bees to survive and multiply. When a hive grows overcrowded, usually in early summer, the old queen will lay eggs for several new queens and, just before they hatch, will leave with about half the worker bees. If the swarm has not found a hive in three days, the bees will become agitated. They will die in about a week if they do not have a hive. They will start to build comb out in the open air if they cannot find a hive, and will survive then until fall in a temperate climate. A hiveless swarm will die in winter because they have no protection. If a swarm leaves the hive too late in the season, they will not be able to establish their new hive before plants stop blooming for the year.

    Lost and Abandoned

    • The worker bee is a cog in a greater mechanism.

      An individual bee will die within 24 hours of leaving the hive. It is too small on its own to hold temperature, and has no way of storing extra food. A worker bee will live for 21 days in the hive, and has a built-in homing instinct. Although the bee cannot get lost, it can be left behind when a beehive is moved by a migratory beekeeper. One possible cause of the Colony Collapse Disorder plaguing honeybees is that something causes the workers to lose that sense of direction and they simply lose their way back home, causing the eventual death of the colony. Colony Collapse Disorder, which began to be noticed in the early 2000s, is a phenomenon where most of the bees in a colony vanish, leaving the queen and a few immature worker bees, who display agitated behavior and confusion. The colony will die within days without the workers to feed and maintain the hive.