The honeybees I keep are Apis mellifera, also known as the European honey bee. They come in three types: a worker, a queen, and a drone. Most of the bees are workers, like their name says they do the work in a hive. The hive also has some drones, in the Spring and the Summer there are enough that you can find one without too much searching but in the Fall and Winter it can be hard to find a drone. The hive also has one queen.
When the queen lays an egg she decides if the egg will be fertilized or not. If she lays a fertilized egg it develops into a female, so it will be a worker or a queen. If the egg isn't fertilized it will be a male, this is a drone.
If the hive decides it needs a new queen the workers will tend to an egg in a special way and ensure that it turns into a queen. They do this by putting the egg into a larger cell (if the queen didn't lay it there already) and feeding the young bee a lot of extra food with special qualities. This food is called royal jelly.
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