What is an organized group of bees called?

Some bees are eusocial insects; this means they live in organized groups called colonies. Honey bees, the kind of bee used in beekeeping, are eusocial. The home of a bee colony is called a hive. One hive is made up of only one queen.

There are three kinds of bees in a honey bee colony. A queen bee is the most important bee in the colony because she will lay the eggs. The queen bee only uses her stinger to sting other queen bees. The queen is usually the mother of the worker bees. She ate a special jelly called royal jelly from when she was young. Worker bees are females too, and they are the bees that collect pollen from flowers and will fight to protect the colony. Workers do a waggle dance to tell the others where they have found nectar; Karl von Frisch discovered this.

Drone bees (males) mate with the queen bee so that she can lay eggs. The only function of the male drone is to mate. They do no other work in the hive.