In the complex societies of social insects, a queen is the singular, reproductive female ensuring the colony’s continuation. These communities, including bees, wasps, ants, and termites, rely on the queen for their existence. While other colony members, such as workers and drones, fulfill non-reproductive roles, the queen is the central figure, laying the eggs from which all new individuals emerge.
The Queen’s Primary Role
The queen’s primary role is reproduction, making her the mother of the entire colony. Her ability to lay eggs at a prolific rate directly fuels the colony’s population growth and ensures its survival. In honeybee hives, a queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs daily during peak seasons, significantly boosting the hive’s numbers. This continuous egg-laying process occurs in hexagonal cells within the honeycomb, where she can choose to fertilize an egg, resulting in a female worker bee, or leave it unfertilized, leading to a male drone.
Ant queens lay thousands, sometimes millions, of eggs throughout their lives. These eggs develop into worker ants, soldiers, or future queens, depending on the colony’s needs. Termite queens produce thousands of eggs daily to sustain and expand their populations, with some species laying as many as 20,000 eggs per day. This continuous production of offspring maintains the demographic balance and health of her insect society.
How a Queen is Made
The path to becoming a queen insect is not predetermined by genetics alone; environmental factors and specific diets play a substantial role in this developmental process. For honeybees, all female larvae initially receive royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from the glands of nurse bees. However, only those larvae destined to become queens continue to be fed this substance exclusively throughout their development, while worker larvae switch to a diet of bee bread after about three days. This continuous royal jelly diet triggers a cascade of molecular events, activating specific genes that lead to the development of a fully formed reproductive system, larger size, and an extended lifespan characteristic of a queen.
In ants, the differentiation into castes like queens, workers, and soldiers is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. While genetics set a baseline, the diet provided to the larva is a significant factor, with future queens often receiving more protein-rich food. Additionally, the queen’s development can be influenced by the behavior of worker ants; for instance, in some ant species, workers may use aggression, such as biting, to inhibit queen development if conditions for queen rearing are not met. This intricate interplay of nutrition, social cues, and genetic predisposition determines which female larvae will mature into reproductive queens versus sterile workers.
Life and Influence in the Colony
Queen insects live longer than other colony members, often for several years, which is longer than the few weeks or months typical for workers and drones. Honeybee queens can live an average of two to three years, sometimes up to five, continuously laying eggs. Ant queens can live even longer, with some species recorded to live up to 28-30 years in captivity or the field. Termite queens are among the longest-lived insects, with lifespans ranging from 10 to 25 years, and some reports suggesting up to 50 years, laying thousands of eggs daily for decades.
The queen maintains control and cohesion within the colony primarily through the release of pheromones. These chemical signals regulate various behaviors and developments in the worker caste, including suppressing the reproductive capabilities of other females and influencing worker task allocation. For example, queen mandibular pheromone in honeybees inhibits workers from starting new queen cells and helps unify the colony. In termites, specific genes like Neofem2 are responsible for producing pheromones that keep colony members in order and prevent the development of secondary reproductives. The absence of a queen, and thus her pheromones, can lead to confusion, erratic behavior among workers, and eventually the colony’s decline as no new offspring are produced.