The survival of a colony of bees
living in a bee hive depends on the queen bee. Without a
queen bee the hive will eventually die. The hives queen
is the only female bee in the hive that has fully
developed reproductive organs. The queen is not in
control of the hive. Her soul purpose is to lay eggs
that will develop into bees that will fill other roles
in the hive.
The queen bee is determined when the bee is still in its
larval stage. The larval that has been set aside as
potential queens are fed extra royal jelly. Royal jelly
is a secretion that the worker bees store in their
heads. Larvae that the hive feels will make potential
queens are also kept in Queen cells. Queen cells differ
from cells used in the rest of the hive because they are
larger and are designed vertically instead of
vertically, the queen hangs, head down, during her
development.
Potential queen larvae must be determined within four
days of the time the larvae is laid.
When it is time for the queen to leave her cell, she
chews through the cap. As she chews she emits a sound
that is believed to warn other hatching queens of her
arrival. Music aficionados will recognize the sound as a
G sharp. It is not unusual to find that after the first
queen bee has hatched that the rest of the queen cells
have a slit in them where the young queen has chewed
through, effectively killing the developing larvae
inside the cells. Beekeepers call the destroyed larvae,
virgin queens. Worker bees will try to keep several
young queens alive at a time in order to have a backup
Queen available if the first queen is unable to find a
mate or does not survive her nuptial flight.
When the new queen is old enough to fly she leaves the
hive. While she is away from the hive she must find
several drone bees from a different hive to mate with.
It is important that the queen mate with at least twelve
drones during this nuptial flight. The sperm that she
collects during this flight will be the sperm that she
uses for the rest of her life. If the queen is unable to
make the nuptial flight the survival of the rest of the
hive is in peril. Most hives try to keep several virgin
queens alive to help prevent that from happening.
Most hives allow the old queen to continue to lay eggs,
however when it is time for the rest of the hive to
swarm, she leaves the hive.
Once they have mated with a queen the drone bees die.
It is normally easy to see which bee is the queen bee
when she is surrounded by other bees. She has a abdomen
that is considerably longer then her fellow hive mates.
To make identifying the queen faster many beekeepers
mark their queen with a tiny bit of paint.
The average life span of the queen bee is two to three
years.