The queen bee is the central figure in a honey bee colony, serving as the sole reproductive female. Her presence dictates the hive’s organization and ensures its continuation. She is responsible for all new bees, and her influence shapes the behavior and development of thousands of individual bees. The queen bee’s role is fundamental to the complex social structure of a bee colony.
The Queen Bee’s Unique Role
The queen bee’s primary function is reproduction, acting as the mother to nearly every bee in the hive. She lays all the eggs that populate the colony, sometimes as many as 2,000 per day during peak season. This prolific egg-laying ensures a continuous supply of new worker bees, drones, and future queens, maintaining the hive’s population. The queen also controls the sex of her offspring, laying fertilized eggs for female workers or queens, and unfertilized eggs for male drones.
Beyond reproduction, the queen bee influences the hive through pheromones, which are chemical signals. These pheromones regulate colony behavior, maintaining social structure and cohesion. They suppress worker bee ovary development, preventing chaos within the hive. A strong pheromone signal indicates a healthy and thriving colony, while a weakening signal can alert beekeepers to potential problems.
From Larva to Ruler: How a Queen is Made
The creation of a queen bee begins with a fertilized egg, genetically identical to those that become worker bees. Worker bees select a young larva and place it in a specialized queen cell. These cells are distinct from regular hexagonal worker cells, being larger, vertically oriented, and often shaped like a peanut shell, usually built along the edges or bottom of the comb.
The selected larva receives an exclusive diet of royal jelly throughout its larval development. This milky, protein-rich substance is secreted from glands in the heads of nurse bees. Unlike worker larvae, which switch to a diet of bee bread (pollen, nectar, and honey) after a few days, the continuous feeding of royal jelly triggers the development of the larva’s reproductive organs and other queen-specific characteristics. This dietary difference, rather than genetic variation, determines whether a larva develops into a queen or a worker.
The Queen’s Life Cycle and Succession
A queen bee emerges from her queen cell after about 16 days of development from an egg. As a virgin queen, she embarks on a series of mating flights. During these flights, she mates with multiple male drones, collecting and storing sperm in a specialized organ called the spermatheca. This single mating period provides her with enough sperm to fertilize eggs for the rest of her life, which can span several years, though two to three years is more common.
Colonies manage queen replacement through several mechanisms. Supersedure occurs when worker bees replace an aging or failing queen whose egg-laying or pheromone production declines. Workers build a few queen cells to raise a new queen while the old queen may still be present. Alternatively, during swarming, a strong colony divides, with the old queen leaving the hive with a portion of worker bees to establish a new colony, leaving new queen cells to emerge and take over the original hive. If a queen suddenly dies, worker bees can create emergency queen cells from young worker larvae to quickly raise a replacement.