The queen honey bee is the singular reproductive female within her colony, serving as the biological anchor for the entire society. She is noticeably larger than the thousands of worker bees and drones that surround her, possessing an elongated abdomen designed for massive egg production. While worker bees typically live for only a few weeks, a healthy queen can survive and function for several years. Her presence and productivity determine the colony’s capacity to grow and ensure its long-term survival.
The Queen’s Role in Colony Reproduction
The queen maintains the colony’s population by laying eggs with astonishing efficiency. During peak seasons, a queen can lay upwards of 2,000 eggs daily, often exceeding her own body weight in output. She inspects each wax cell before depositing an egg, using the cell’s size and shape to decide the offspring’s fate. This selective process maintains the balance of female workers and male drones needed for the colony’s function.
The queen controls the sex of her offspring using the spermatheca, an internal organ that stores sperm collected during her initial mating flights. If she releases sperm to fertilize the egg, the resulting diploid offspring develops into a female (worker or future queen). If she withholds sperm, the unfertilized egg develops into a haploid male, known as a drone. This ability to regulate the colony’s genetic composition is fundamental to its stability.
Chemical Control of the Hive
Beyond physical reproduction, the queen governs the hive’s social structure through chemical signals called pheromones. The most influential is Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP), a blend of compounds that attracts workers and regulates their physiology. Worker bees in the queen’s retinue constantly groom her, collecting QMP and distributing it throughout the colony via physical contact and food sharing. This chemical signal communicates the queen’s presence and health to every member of the hive.
The consistent distribution of QMP suppresses reproductive activity in female workers by inhibiting the development of their ovaries. This chemical suppression ensures the queen remains the only fertile female, maintaining the reproductive division of labor. High QMP levels also prevent workers from initiating the building of specialized queen cells, stabilizing the social order. The pheromone blend influences worker behavior, stimulating nursing activities and regulating the age at which young bees transition into foraging roles.
Development and Unique Anatomy
A queen is not genetically different from a worker bee; both develop from the same fertilized egg. The trajectory is determined solely by nutrition, as a queen-destined larva is fed exclusively on royal jelly throughout its developmental period. This protein-rich secretion, produced by nurse bees, triggers the full development of her reproductive system. Her larval stage occurs within a large, vertically oriented, peanut-shaped queen cell, a specialized construction that accommodates her size.
After emerging, the virgin queen embarks on mating flights, known as the nuptial flight, where she mates with 10 to 20 drones from various colonies. The collected sperm is stored permanently in her spermatheca, providing a lifetime supply to fertilize millions of eggs. Anatomically, she possesses a longer, smoother stinger, which she uses exclusively to dispatch rival queens. This contrasts with the barbed stinger of the worker bee, which is lost upon a single use. She is notably larger, with a prominent abdomen, and lacks the specialized pollen baskets found on worker bee legs.
Succession and Replacement Mechanisms
The colony’s survival depends on the timely replacement of the queen when her egg-laying or pheromone production declines. When a queen is failing or the colony is overcrowded, workers initiate one of three replacement processes.
Swarming
Swarming is intentional colony division where the old queen leaves the hive with roughly half the workers to establish a new home. This action is preceded by the construction of numerous queen cells, typically located along the bottom edges of the comb.
Supersedure
Supersedure is the quiet, non-divisional replacement of a queen whose pheromone output is diminishing due to age or injury. Workers build only a few queen cells, often found in the middle of the brood comb. The colony may briefly harbor two laying queens before the old one is replaced.
Emergency Queen Rearing
Emergency queen rearing occurs when the queen is suddenly lost or killed. In a swift response, workers modify existing worker brood cells containing young larvae, creating makeshift queen cells to raise a replacement quickly.