Queen bees: what makes them so special compared to other bees?
Queen bees are the centerpiece of every hive: let's find out why
The queen bees are the most important individuals of the colony . Each hive is made up of a significant amount of bees and a single queen. But why are queen bees so essential to a swarm?
The reason for their importance is contained in a single factor: reproduction. The queen bee is in fact the only bee in the colony capable of reproducing. The worker bees are unable to lay fertilized eggs and for this reason, the queen plays an irreplaceable role.
What happens if the queen bee dies?
If there wasn't a fertile bee in the family, the swarm would be short-lived. The queen bees guarantee the turnover of bees and, with the birth of new individuals, they allow the colony to remain healthy and strong. To manage a hive requires the work of thousands of workers. If the number of components decreased, it would be difficult for the swarm to produce enough food and take care of the maintenance of the hive in general.
For this reason, without a queen capable of reproducing, swarms could not continue to exist. It is easy to learn the concept considering that the average life span of a worker bee is about 60 days. If after this short period of time, all the workers began to die, the hive would not survive.
But why is the queen bee able to reproduce while the workers are not? Let's find out together the main differences between queen bees and worker bees and how the hive sovereign was born and developed.
Worker bees and queens: physical differences
Recognizing a queen bee is simple. First we can see that the shape of her body is different from that of the worker bees. Queens have a longer, more tapered body than other bees. The body develops differently thanks to the nourishment that the queens receive throughout their life.
A queen is fed exclusively with royal jelly , a "delicious" food compared to honey. Her nutrition allows her to assimilate more nutrients and to have a very developed reproductive system suitable for laying of eggs for a long time.
The queen also develops a sting different from that of worker bees. The queen's is smooth and straight, while the workers' sting is curved and serrated. In the first case, the sting is used by the sovereign as a reproduction tool to insert the eggs inside the cells. The workers, on the other hand, use it as a defense weapon whenever they feel threatened.
The body shape is therefore different. Queens possess characteristics that make them suitable for producing eggs for years. The queen manages to live much longer than a worker (from 2 to 5 years). During her entire existence, she will never leave the hive and will deal exclusively with reproduction.
How hive queens are born
Queens are born from fertilized eggs inserted into royal cells . The worker bees in fact build hexagonal cells (for the development of the larvae that will become workers or drones) but also real cells in which the queen bees will develop.
When a queen bee has become too old and not very productive, she is replaced. Usually bees build more than one royal cell but, as we have already said, each hive has room for only one queen. The one who will be born before the others, will kill all her competitors even before they leave their cells. If, on the other hand, several queens are born at the same time, a mortal battle will occur in which only one will be able to survive and become the new ruler of the colony .
Nuptial flight: the mating of the queen
A few days after her birth, a virgin queen bee carries out the mating flight, defined as "nuptial flight". During this phase, she mates with all the drones in the colony. Through the production of pheromones , it also manages to attract the drones present in nearby hives.
After the nuptial flight, the queen becomes fertile and she can use the semen stored in her body to produce eggs for years. Female bees will be born from the fertilized eggs, while new drones (male bees) will be born from the unfertilized eggs.
Swarming and abandonment of the hive
Swarming encompasses the final stage of a queen's life. When a queen bee ages and becomes less productive, the worker bees begin to organize themselves to replace it.
Shortly before the birth of her replacement, the queen bee leaves the hive and part of the swarm leaves with her. The workers who follow her will help her to settle elsewhere and will remain to take care of her until the end of her days.
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