Queen bee facts for kids

A queen bee (marked) with her worker bees.

A queen bee is usually the only adult female bee in a hive that can lay eggs. She has fully grown reproductive parts. The queen is often the mother of almost all the bees in her hive. Worker bees choose certain young bees (called larvae) and feed them special food to help them become queens. Usually, there is only one queen bee in a hive. The other bees protect her very strongly.

Sometimes, the term "queen bee" can also mean any main female bee that lays eggs in a colony of social bees, not just honey bees. For example, some types of stingless bees can have many queens in one nest. They might even have smaller "dwarf" queens ready to take over if the main queen dies suddenly.

How a Queen Bee Grows

During warmer times of the year, female "worker" bees fly out daily. They collect sweet nectar and pollen. Male bees, called drones, do not help build the hive or collect pollen. Their main job is to mate with a queen bee. After mating, they die.

Any fertilized egg can become a queen. What a bee larva eats decides if it will become a queen or a worker. Queens are fed only royal jelly. This is a special, protein-rich food made by glands on the heads of young worker bees. Worker larvae eat "bee bread," which is a mix of nectar and pollen. All bee larvae get some royal jelly for their first few days. But only queen larvae eat royal jelly all the time. Because of this special diet, the queen grows into a female bee that can lay eggs. Worker bees cannot.

Queens grow in special "queen cells." These cells look and feel like a peanut. They start as "queen cups," which are bigger than regular bee cells. They point downwards instead of sideways. Worker bees only build up a queen cup after the queen lays an egg in it. The old queen usually lays eggs in these cups when the hive is ready to swarm. Swarm cells hang from the bottom of a hive frame. Queens made to replace an old queen (called "supersedure" or "emergency" queens) are often built on the flat surface of a frame.

When a young queen larva is ready, workers cover her cell with beeswax. When she is ready to come out, the virgin queen chews a circle around the cap of her cell. The cap often swings open like a lid. During swarming season, the old queen might leave with a group of bees before the first new queen comes out.

Virgin Queen Bee Life Cycle

A virgin queen is a queen bee that has not yet mated with a male bee. Virgin queens are bigger than worker bees but smaller than mated queens. They are also much more active. It can be hard to find them when checking the hive. They run quickly over the comb and may even fly away if disturbed. Virgin queens are often found clinging to the hive walls or corners.

Virgin queens do not have much "queen pheromone." This means workers often do not recognize them as queens. A virgin queen can sometimes be put into a hive without a queen. The workers usually accept her well. But a mated queen is often seen as a stranger and might be killed by older workers.

When a young virgin queen comes out of her cell, she usually tries to find and kill other virgin queens. She will sting any other emerged virgin queens or those still in their cells. Queen cells that are opened on the side usually mean a virgin queen was killed by a rival. If a colony is still in "swarm mode" after the first swarm leaves, workers might stop virgins from fighting. Then, one or more virgins might leave with later swarms. Other virgins might stay with the rest of the hive. Some virgins have even flown away to avoid being killed. They might look for another hive without a queen. When a swarm settles in a new home, the virgins will fight until only one is left.

If a swarm has both a virgin queen and an old queen, the old queen is usually allowed to live. She keeps laying eggs. After a few weeks, she will die naturally. The former virgin, now mated, will then take her place.

Unlike worker bees, a queen's stinger is not barbed. This means she can sting many times without dying.

Piping

"Piping" is a sound made by virgin and mated queen bees. Virgin queens in their cells make a "quacking" sound. Queens that are free in the hive make a "tooting" sound. These sounds are called piping. A virgin queen might pipe often before she comes out of her cell. She might also pipe for a short time after. Mated queens might pipe briefly after being put into a hive.

Piping happens most when there is more than one queen in a hive. Some think piping is like a battle cry. It tells other queens and workers that she is ready to fight. It might also show workers which queen is the best to support.

An adult queen pipes with a two-second pulse. Then she makes a series of short "toots." Queens of African bees pipe more strongly and often.

Reproduction Cycle

The virgin queen that survives will fly out on a sunny, warm day. She goes to a special area where male bees (drones) gather. There, she will mate with 12 to 15 drones. If the weather stays good, she might go back to this area for several days until she has mated enough. Mating happens while flying.

A young virgin queen has only a short time to mate. If bad weather stops her from flying for many days, she will not mate. She will then become a "drone layer." This means she can only lay unfertilized eggs, which become male drones. A hive with only a drone-laying queen usually dies. This is because the workers cannot raise new female worker bees or a replacement queen.

Mating usually happens between the sixth and tenth day after the queen comes out. Egg laying usually starts 2 to 3 days after the queen returns to the beehive.

Supersedure

As a queen gets older, she produces less of her special scent (pheromone). When a queen bee gets old, sick, or is not doing well, the workers replace her. This process is called "supersedure."

Sometimes, a beekeeper might make supersedure happen. For example, they might clip one of the queen's legs. This makes it hard for her to lay eggs properly. The workers notice this and then raise new queens. When a new queen is ready, the workers kill the old queen. They do this by "balling" her. They crowd tightly around her. This raises her body temperature, causing her to overheat and die. Beekeepers often have trouble introducing a new queen because workers might "ball" her.

If a queen dies suddenly, the workers will try to make an "emergency queen." They pick a few young larvae and feed them lots of royal jelly. The worker bees then build bigger queen cells over these normal worker cells. These cells stick out vertically from the comb. Emergency queens are usually smaller and lay fewer eggs than normal queens.

Daily Life of a Queen Bee

The main job of a queen bee is to lay eggs. A healthy queen, well-fed and from good stock, can lay about 1,500 eggs each day during spring. This is more than her own body weight in eggs every day! Worker bees are always around her. They give her food and clean up her waste. These worker bees also collect and spread the queen's special scent (pheromone). This scent stops other workers from starting new queen cells.

The queen bee can choose the sex of the eggs she lays. She lays a fertilized (female) or unfertilized (male) egg based on the size of the cell. Male bees (drones) grow in cells that are much larger than the cells used for worker bees.

How to Identify a Queen Bee

The queen bee's body is longer than the worker bees around her. It is also longer than a male bee's. Still, in a hive of 60,000 to 80,000 honey bees, it is hard for beekeepers to find the queen quickly. Because of this, many queens in managed hives are marked. Beekeepers put a small dab of paint on her back. The paint usually does not hurt the queen. It just makes her easier to find when needed.

Sometimes the color is chosen randomly. But professional queen breeders use a color that shows the year the queen was born. This helps them know if their queens are too old. It helps them decide if the queen needs to be replaced to keep the hive strong. A trick to remember the color order is: Will You Raise Good Bees (white, yellow, red, green, blue).

Sometimes, tiny round tags with numbers are used. This is helpful when a beekeeper has many queens born in the same year. This method can also be used to watch many bees in the same hive for research.

Queen Rearing

Queen rearing is when beekeepers help raise queen bees from young fertilized worker bee larvae. The most common way is called the Doolittle method. In this method, the beekeeper carefully moves larvae that are less than 24 hours old. They put them into a row of special queen cell cups. These cups are then placed inside a "cell-building colony." This is a strong, well-fed hive without a queen. This colony feeds the larvae royal jelly. This helps the larvae grow into queen bees.

After about 10 days, the queen cells are moved. They go into small "mating nuclei colonies." These are placed in special "mating yards." The queens come out of their cells inside these small colonies. After about 7 to 10 days, the virgin queens take their mating flights. They mate with 10 to 20 male bees (drones). Then they return to their mating colonies as mated queen bees.

Anyone can raise queens. Hobby beekeepers might raise a few for their own hives. Larger companies raise many queens to sell to others.

Beekeepers can also use other ways to raise queens.

See also

In Spanish: Abeja reina para niños

• Worker policing

Images for kids

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  Older queen larvae in queen cell.

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  A queen cup.

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  Queen larvae floating on royal jelly in opened queen cups.

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  Capped queen cell opened to show queen pupa.

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  Capped swarm queen cells.

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  An unmarked queen bee with her attendant workers.

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  A marked queen bee.