Queen Bee 101: How a Hive Chooses Its Queen
Every colony revolves around one bee: the queen. But here's something that surprises most people. A queen isn't born royal. She starts life as exactly the same kind of egg as any worker bee. What makes her a queen is how the colony raises her.
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What the queen actually does
Despite her title, the queen doesn't give orders. Her main job is laying eggs, up to 1,500 or more a day at the height of the season. She also produces chemical signals called pheromones that tell the colony she's healthy and present and help hold the whole community together.
How a queen is made
When a colony needs a new queen, the workers pick a few very young female larvae and raise them in special cells. These queen cells are large and hang down from the comb like a peanut shell.
The secret is food. All young larvae get royal jelly, a protein-rich substance produced by glands in young worker bees' heads, for their first few days. Future workers are then switched to a mix that includes pollen and honey. Future queens are fed royal jelly generously throughout their development. That rich diet switches on a different path of growth: a larger body, fully developed ovaries, and a lifespan measured in years instead of weeks.
Three reasons a colony raises a new queen
- Emergency: If the queen dies suddenly, the workers quickly choose larvae already in worker cells and convert them into queen cells.
- Supersedure: If the queen is getting old or weak, the colony quietly raises a replacement. Sometimes mother and daughter even live side by side for a short time.
- Swarming: When a colony is crowded and thriving, it raises new queens so it can split. The old queen leaves with about half the bees to start a new home, and a new queen takes over the original hive.
The first queen out wins
A queen develops fast, emerging about 16 days after her egg is laid. Because colonies often raise several queen cells, the first queen to emerge usually seeks out her rivals and stings them in their cells. If two emerge together, they may fight. In the end, one queen remains.
Mating flights
About a week after emerging, the new queen takes one or more mating flights, where she mates in the air with many drones from other colonies. She stores their sperm for the rest of her life and will likely never mate again. Back home, she starts laying within a few days and can lead the colony for several years.
How beekeepers spot the queen
A queen is longer than a worker, with a long, tapered abdomen that extends past her wings. Workers often face her in a little circle, feeding and grooming her. Even so, finding her among tens of thousands of bees can take practice. That's why many beekeepers mark their queens with a small dot of paint. Often, we simply look for fresh eggs. If we see eggs, we know she was there in the last few days. (Checking for a laying queen is a key part of fall hive prep.)
If you'd like to mark your own queen, a queen marking pen and a queen catcher clip make the job much easier and gentler.
Can bees tell their people apart the way they tell their queen apart? Find out in Do Bees Recognize Their Beekeeper? And to keep track of when you last spotted your queen or her eggs, try our Apiary Management Journal.
