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🐝 Bee Aging and Longevity Lab

Why summer worker bees live six weeks while queens live years: the biology and factors behind honeybee aging and lifespan.

Biology3DAdvanced60 FPS

Three glowing towers represent the lifespans of a worker, a drone, and a queen honeybee, while a bee in the foreground visibly ages — its wings fraying and colors dulling — on a fast-forwarded loop driven by the same biological factors that shape real bee lifespans.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Activity level, nutrition quality, and thermal stress combine to produce wildly different lifespans from nearly identical genomes — a summer worker's six weeks versus a queen's several years.

🎮 How to Use

Pick a focus caste, then drag the activity, nutrition, and stress sliders. Watch the three towers rescale and the foreground bee's aging speed and appearance change in real time.

💡 Did You Know?

Winter "diutinus" bees are genetically identical to short-lived summer workers — by foraging less and stockpiling the protein vitellogenin, they survive many months longer.

⚙ Under the hood

Why summer worker bees live six weeks while queens live years: the biology and factors behind honeybee aging and lifespan.

beesaginglifespanhoneybeeinsect biologydevelopmental biologyThree.js

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install