The Life Cycle Of A Queen Bee

The queen’s life cycle is a bit different from that of the workers. But she is a servant of the hive in spite of her high birth and at the mercy of the whims of the workers.

The queen starts out as an egg just like any other bee in the hive. But there the similarities to the worker bees end. The queen bee egg is destined for greatness from the start and therefore it is laid in a queen cell. The cell the queen egg is laid in is bigger. This is because queens are bigger than the workers and drones. When the egg develops into a larva it is fed differently from the worker larva. The difference is that she is fed royal jelly. The royal jelly causes her to grow larger and develop fully and be fertile. The worker bees are all unable to lay eggs.

When the queen hatches from the cell she has one thing on her mind, that is to find the resident queen and kill her. The resident is nearly always her mother. But there can only be one queen in a hive. That done her mind switches to track two. Find a drone and mate. Not one in the hive. That would not be good for the line. She leaves the hive and flies high to where the drones gather and will mate at least once. After mating the drone dies. The more drones she mates with the better for her. The more she mates the more eggs she can lay and the longer she will be allowed to live.

The workers will kill a non-laying queen and replace her. Same goes if she is injured or ill. When things are going well for the hive the queen is adored. It there is a threat to the future of the hive and the queen may be blamed, she is a dead bee. The

Would you want to be the queen after all that? Well actually maybe. The workers only live about forty days. The drones are kicked out before winter so that they don't waste resources. They then die without the support of the hive. The queen lives between tow and four years. So have a think about it.