Queen Honey Bee Life Cycle

An entire bee colony is produced from one queen bee.

Honey bees are social insects that live together in large communities and follow a structured division of labor that benefits the colony as a whole. The queen honey bee is at the center of it all; her life cycle and responsibilities are important because she is the only female in the colony that can lay and fertilize eggs. This task keeps her very busy and ultimately ensures that the colony will live on for future generations.

Preparations

The worker bees of the colony are responsible for building three distinct types of cells for egg placement. Ordinary cells hang vertically with 1/2-inch gaps between each wax comb layer; this technique creates cells that lie horizontally. The queen cells are larger and constructed individually, resembling small acorns that point downward from the bottom or surface of the comb. The current queen will eventually lay a fertilized egg in a queen cell, and a new female larva will soon emerge.

Development

Early development in drone, worker and queen honey bees is very similar; the main differences are related to the type and amount of food that they are each given. Bee larvae hatch from their eggs and remain in their cells to feed off of substances deposited by the workers. They will grow, pupate and eventually leave their cells as adult bees. After the queen bee emerges from her cell, she will often bite a hole in other occupied queen cells, and the workers will then tear down these cells and destroy the other potential queens.

Initial Feeding

All bee larvae are fed royal jelly---a milky, protein-rich secretion---for the first three days after hatching, but the queen bee will continue to eat this royal jelly for the rest of her life. The drone and worker bees, on the other hand, switch from eating royal jelly to a mixture of pollen and diluted nectar. There is no difference between the eggs and young larvae of queen and worker bees; if a worker bee larva is moved to a queen bee cell within three days of hatching, and given the appropriate royal jelly diet, she will develop into a queen. So the treatment that is given by the workers is the only deciding factor between these two very different types of bees.

Mating

The mature queen will leave the hive several times and gradually learn the geography of the surrounding area. At some point during these flights, drone bees will pursue her; the drone that catches her will mate with the queen and deposit sperm into her sperm sac. Queen bees will usually only mate once before returning to the hive so they can begin to lay eggs.

Laying Eggs

Queen honey bees live for about three to five years, and spend almost all of this time laying eggs. It is estimated that a queen lays up to 1500 eggs per day, placing each one in a wax cell made by the workers. The sperm stored in her sperm sac will last for two or more years as she releases a small amount with each fertilized egg she lays. The queen may continue to lays eggs after her sperm supply is depleted; these eggs will only hatch as drones, since fertilization is what separates the development of worker and drone bees. Near the end of her life cycle, the queen's daughter will take over the colony and begin to lay eggs in place of the older queen.

References

• Biology Teaching and Learning Resources: The Honey Bee (Apis mellifera); D.G. Mackean

Resources

• Michigan State University: Queen Bees Control Sex of Young After All
• Beemaster: The Honeybee Queen