The queen bee serves as the sole reproductive female and the central figure around which the entire colony revolves. Her primary functions are laying fertilized eggs and producing chemical signals that maintain social order. The most significant signal is Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP), a complex blend of compounds that dictates the behavior and physiology of the thousands of workers. Because the queen’s presence is linked directly to the colony’s cohesion, her sudden death precipitates an immediate crisis that threatens the population.
Detecting the Absence of Pheromones
The colony realizes the queen is gone through the rapid drop in Queen Mandibular Pheromone (QMP) concentration, not visual confirmation. Workers in the queen’s retinue spread this pheromone throughout the hive as a continuous chemical signal of her presence. When the queen dies, the QMP supply ceases, and the existing pheromone quickly dissipates.
The loss of this chemical signal causes a physiological and behavioral shift in the worker bees. QMP normally suppresses the development of worker ovaries, preventing them from laying eggs, and regulates the division of labor. As QMP levels fall, workers become agitated and disorganized, often exhibiting a noticeable “roar” within the hive. This drop in pheromone triggers the workers to initiate the emergency protocol to save the colony.
The Race to Raise a Replacement Queen
Upon recognizing the queen’s loss, workers immediately attempt an emergency queen-rearing procedure. This process requires locating fertilized female larvae young enough to be chemically reprogrammed into queens. The most suitable larvae are less than three days old, as older larvae have developed too far along the worker pathway.
Workers select several young larvae from standard horizontal worker cells. They rapidly modify the cell structure by tearing down surrounding comb walls to create vertically hanging “emergency queen cells.” These cells are structurally distinct from those prepared during swarming because they originate from an existing worker cell on the face of the comb.
The selected larvae are fed a massive, continuous supply of Royal Jelly, a protein-rich secretion produced by nurse bees. This specialized diet, instead of the worker diet of pollen and honey, drives the morphological transformation. This allows the female larva to develop a fully reproductive system instead of sterile worker anatomy. After about eight days, the queen cell is capped, and the pupa develops for another week before a virgin queen emerges.
Multiple virgin queens are often raised, and the first one to emerge typically seeks out and stings her developing rivals through the cell walls. The surviving virgin queen then prepares for mating flights, leaving the hive to mate with up to a dozen drones. If she successfully returns and begins laying eggs, the colony is saved, and order is restored by her newly produced pheromones.
Colony Decline and the Rise of Laying Workers
If the emergency procedure fails—perhaps due to a lack of suitable larvae or the loss of the virgin queen during a mating flight—the colony enters irreversible decline. Without the suppressive effect of QMP for three to four weeks, the ovaries of some worker bees begin to activate. These workers are known as “laying workers.”
Laying workers are incapable of mating, so any eggs they produce are unfertilized. Due to the honey bee genetic system, unfertilized eggs develop only into male drones. The presence of laying workers is often confirmed by a chaotic brood pattern, featuring multiple eggs deposited randomly inside a single cell.
The resulting brood consists entirely of drones, which are unable to forage, nurse, or defend the hive. As the older worker population dies off, the colony is left with a population that only produces males, leading to an unsustainable population imbalance. A colony dominated by laying workers often rejects attempts to introduce a new fertile queen and is considered doomed to collapse.