main idea. A. Although a hive may contain as many as 20,000 bees, only a few of its females become queens and mate with drones. B. Once a queen has completed mating, she lays thousands of eggs each day, thereby supplying the colony with offspring for many years. C. Worker bees accomplish all the work necessary to maintain the hive by following an orderly pattern of taking on new tasks as they mature. D. Mature workers are typically required to play a variety of roles daily to ensure that the needs of the hive are being met. E. Rather than following orders from leaders, workers determine what needs to be done from environmental cues or from signals from other workers. F. Bees communicate most efficiently when they provide explicit signals to their fellow workers.