The bumblebee queen is the founder and matriarch of her colony, a central figure in the life cycle of these pollinators. Each colony begins with a single queen who carries the responsibility for its creation. Her work ensures the presence of bumblebees in gardens, farms, and wild landscapes. The annual cycle of the bumblebee colony begins and ends with a queen.
Identifying a Bumblebee Queen
Distinguishing a bumblebee queen from other bees involves observing a few characteristics, particularly in the spring. The most apparent feature is her size; queens are noticeably larger and more robust than the worker bees that will appear later in the season. The queen can be significantly larger, and this substantial build is necessary for the demanding tasks she must perform alone.
The timing of her appearance is another definitive clue. Bumblebee queens are the first to emerge in the early spring, often when temperatures are still cool. Seeing a large bumblebee at this time of year is a strong indication that it is a queen recently awakened from her winter hibernation, searching for food to replenish her energy.
Her behavior is also distinct. A queen’s flight pattern in spring is slow and close to the ground. She often flies in a zigzagging pattern, carefully investigating holes and dense grass. This is not foraging behavior but a deliberate search for a suitable nesting site, which contrasts with the quicker flight of worker bees traveling from flower to flower.
The Queen’s Solitary Spring Mission
After emerging from hibernation, the queen embarks on a solitary mission to establish a new colony. Her first priority is to consume nectar from early-blooming flowers to restore fat reserves. Once she has sufficient energy, her focus shifts to finding a secure, insulated location for her nest. Ideal sites are often abandoned rodent burrows or thick tussocks of grass that provide protection.
Once a suitable location is secured, the queen single-handedly begins constructing the nest. She gathers materials like moss and dry grass to create an insulating blanket. Inside, she builds a small, waxy pot for storing nectar and a separate mound of pollen mixed with nectar, upon which she will lay her first clutch of 8 to 16 eggs.
The queen’s duties then shift to incubation. She sits on her eggs, shivering her flight muscles to generate heat and maintain a constant temperature around 30°C. During this period, she consumes the nectar she stored. She performs all these tasks—nest building, provisioning, and incubation—entirely on her own over several weeks.
Life Inside the Colony
The emergence of the first brood of daughters, all sterile female workers, marks a transition in the queen’s life. Her role shifts from a solitary founder to the colony’s matriarch. With a workforce to take over all other duties, the queen’s primary function becomes egg-laying, and she will rarely, if ever, leave the nest again.
Her daughters assume the responsibilities of foraging for pollen and nectar, defending the nest, and caring for developing larvae. The queen focuses her energy on expanding the colony’s population, laying hundreds of eggs over the summer. She maintains her reproductive dominance through physical interactions and releasing chemical signals known as pheromones, which suppress the reproductive development of her workers.
This division of labor allows the colony to grow rapidly in size and efficiency. The queen becomes an egg-laying specialist, ensuring a steady supply of new workers to support the expanding nest. Her retirement from external duties allows her to maximize the colony’s growth.
The End of the Season and a New Generation
As late summer approaches, the colony’s life cycle enters its final phase. The queen alters her egg-laying behavior, producing new, fertile queens and males (drones) instead of workers. This change is triggered by a combination of factors, including the colony’s size and the queen’s age. Larvae destined to become new queens receive extra food, allowing them to grow to a much larger size.
Once they reach maturity, these new queens and males leave the nest to find mates from other colonies. After mating, the males’ life cycle is complete, and they soon die. The newly mated queens do not return to their home nest, instead seeking protected places like loose soil to hibernate through the winter.
The founding queen, her workers, and the males from her colony all perish with the arrival of colder weather and dwindling food resources. The original colony comes to an end. Only the newly mated queens survive, carrying the genetic legacy of her colony to emerge the following spring and begin the cycle anew.