When a Queen Bee is reaching the end of her life, the worker bees start to feed some of the larva pure royal jelly. These larva will be born with reproductive organs because of this diet. This also means that their stingers will not be pulled from their bodies when they use their stingers in the fight of their lives!
What does it take to be... Queen Bee!
A journey of discovery
How does it start?
Did you know?
Up to a dozen Queens can emerge at one time. Sometimes one Queen will hide away from the fighting until the tired winner is the only one left to fight, then she goes in kills her and takes over.
Quiz
How does a Queen Bee win her hive?
- She is the largest and all others accept her.
- She stings the other hatched queen bees to death in order to take the hive.
Quiz
In the picture above, what type of bee do you notice?
The Purpose of a Queen.
Did you know?
The Queen will only leave the hive to mate once in her lifetime or when the hive swarms due to a danger like fire.
Shortly after hatching and defeating her competition, the queen leaves the hive and flies to a drone congregation site, where drones have gathered to mate with a queen.This is her mating flight. After the drones catch her scent, they chase her. She flies as high as she can and only the strongest drone will catch and mate with her. The queen and the drone will only mate once. The Queen Bee returns to the hive and the drone dies. The remaining drones will fair no better. They are kicked out of the hive during the fall to die because their purpose for the hive is completed.