Queen bee: the main individual in the hive

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Even a novice beekeeper will always tell a queen from a worker bee. It is absolutely easy to do this. This is the main female in the hive, living much longer than ordinary bees. It is two, and sometimes three times larger in size and, unlike the latter, has a complete reproductive system. The strength of the family directly depends on how prolific she will be.

In the hive, she performs one single function - she lays eggs, from which drones and workers are then hatched. For one summer period alone, she can lay them down to 120 - 200 thousand. The queen bee is constantly in the hive and leaves it only to meet the drones. An interesting fact is that she can keep seminal fluid inside herself for a long time, using it gradually to lay more and more new eggs.

She is especially productive in the first 2 years of her life. All the time she lays her eggs, she is looked after by a specially assigned retinue - worker bees. The replacement of the queens is usually done in the third year, however, of course, only if they reduce their productivity. You must first inspect the hive. A young female lays eggs in all cells in a row. The old or sick misses them. If this is noticed, the manufacturer must be replaced.

The queen bee can lay only two types of eggs - fertilized, from which workers and other queens are obtained, and unfertilized, from which drones subsequently emerge. Worker bees clean it and feed it with pollen and milk. Having approached the cell, the uterus directs the abdomen into it and lays a small oblong egg. However, he always makes a preliminary inspection - how well the future dwelling of the larva is cleaned.

Sometimes it happens that the queen bee, the photo of which can be seen below, dies. This is most often the fault of the beekeeper himself. He can crush her when examining the hive, or, holding the frame not over it, drop the queen to the ground, where she dies after a short period of time. In this case, after 6-8 hours, the bees select several larvae and begin to intensively fatten them with milk. The cells in which they develop expand and build on.

Bee uterus grown in this way is called fistulous. In most cases, such breeders are in no way inferior to swarm ones. However, in the event that the bees choose not a one-day, but a three-four-day larva, a queen of poor quality will be obtained from it. The family can suffer greatly from this. Meanwhile, if desired, the hive can be freed from potentially low-quality queens. To do this, remove all queen cells that have been sealedwithin four days after laying.

You should try not to miss the moment when the bees start hatching a new producer. The fact is that a four-day queen bee will come out faster and immediately destroy all one-day-olds. Only in a very strong family will the working individuals not allow her to do this. In this case, swarming will occur and the worst queen will fly away with the swarm. The breeder flies out of the hive several times until she mates with the drones.

The only time this doesn't happen is when it's raining outside. With its duration of more than 20 days, the uterus begins to lay only empty eggs. Drone cells are easy to distinguish from the cells of worker bees: their lid is convex. A similar queen, also called a drone queen, will need to be replaced as soon as possible.