How does a queen bee get to be a queen?
MARY REYNOLDS, PLYMOUTH
The queen bee is mother to all members of the hive and is the only bee in the colony to lay fertilised eggs. Her pheromones are so powerful that they bond the colony together as a social unit, and her absence is very quickly noticed.
1. Special cells – called queen cups – are cleaned and enlarged by workers.
2. When the current queen is nearing the end of her reproductive cycle, she’ll start to lay eggs in the queen cups. If the current queen is dead, missing, or unable to lay fertilised eggs, worker bees will urgently choose a suitable larva already in the comb to become the next queen.
3. After three days, a larva hatches from the egg.
4. The young larva is fed a special food called royal jelly, a sweet protein-rich substance secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands of nurse bees.
5. The larva grows very quickly, and after around seven days, the worker bees seal the top of the queen cell with wax.
6. Inside the sealed queen cell, the larva spins a cocoon.
7. The larva metamorphoses into a pupa.
8. After another eight days or so, a fully-formed queen chews through the wax cap and emerges.
9. The new queen destroys potential rivals that may be developing in other cells.
10. After a few days, she mates with drones in the air.
11. Once her sperm-storing organ is full, she will return to the hive to lay as many as 3,000 eggs per day while worker bees keep her well-fed and clean.
12. Queens live for around 1-2 years. When she dies, or reaches the end of her reproductive life, the cycle starts again.
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