![]() She is continuously surrounded by worker bees who meet her every need, giving her food and disposing of her waste. ![]() ![]() ![]() A well-mated and well-fed queen of quality stock can lay about 2,000 eggs per day during the spring build-up - more than her own bodyweight in eggs every day. Her sole function is to serve as the reproducer. Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency.Īlthough the name might imply it, a queen does not directly control the hive. If she is unable to fly for several days because of bad weather and remains unmated, she will become a "drone layer." Drone-laying queens usually mean the death of the colony, because the workers have no fertilized (female) larvae from which to raise a replacement.Ī special, rare case of reproduction is thelytoky: the reproduction of female workers or queens by laying worker bees. The young queen has only a limited time to mate. She will selectively release sperm from that one mating flight for the remaining 2-7 years of her life. The young queen stores the sperm in her spermatheca. If the weather holds, she may return to the drone congregation area for several days until she is fully mated. When one queen survives in a colony, she will fly out on a sunny, warm day to a "drone congregation area" where she will mate with 12-15 drones. For example, during the swarm season, workers may separate young queens, allowing the extra queen(s) to leave with afterswarms. The workers of the colony may, on occasion, thwart the young queen in her attempt to kill the rivals. The queen can sting repeatedly without dying. Unlike the worker bees, the queen's stinger is not barbed. When a young queen emerges, she will generally seek out her rivals and attempt to kill them. (Queen cells that are opened on the side indicate that the virgin queen was likely killed by a rival.) Often the cap swings open when most of the cut is made, so as to appear like a hinged lid. When ready to emerge, she will chew a circular cut around the cap of her cell. The cells have a peanut-like shape and texture.Īs the young queen larva pupates with her head down, the workers cap the cell with beeswax. In general, queens developed when conditions are ripe for swarming and are raised in cells which hang from the bottom of a frame while "supersedure" queens are generally raised in cells built out from the face of a frame. Queens are raised in specially-constructed queen cells which are larger than the cells of normal brood comb and are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. (All honey bee larvae are fed some royal jelly for the first few days after hatching but only queen larvae are fed on it exclusively.) As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees. The young queen develops differently because she is more heavily fed royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers. The queen will develop from an egg (or sometimes very young larva) identical to eggs which will develop into worker bees. When conditions are favorable for swarming or when the old queen starts to fail, the worker bees of a colony will begin to develop one or more new queens. ![]()
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