The Honey bee colony is
composed of three different castes of bees. The Queen bee, the workers bees and
the drones (males). They all have a purpose they serve and if one of them is
not present the colony cannot function properly. Above the other caste of bees,
the queen in the most important.
 |
| Our Rooftop Queen (circled in red) |
The queen bee’s life starts off the same way a worker bee does. However, there
are small significant differences that the queen bee has that worker bees do
not. For instance, the queen bee is but into a different cell that looks
similar to a peanut this helps her grow bigger and is not limited to the size
of the average worker cell. Also, unlike the worker bees the queen bee is fed
royal jelly throughout her life time. The Queen will live an average of three
to five years when the average worker bee will live approximately 30 day.
 |
| Queen cell |
The queen is the only bee in the colony that is able to reproduce.
Interestingly, she only mates once in her lifetime with multiple drones, male
bees. She is able to store all the “genetic make-up” that she has attained. In
addition, she can also choose what “genetic make-up” from a specific male she
would like to use next. The rest of her life is mainly devoted to laying eggs.
She is capable of laying 2000 eggs in one day.
Although the queen is very important she can be replaced under certain
circumstances. For instance, if the queen recently dies the worker bees will
create a queen cell that looks like an outline of a peanut or a tear drop. Then
they would take the youngest larvae and put it in the queen cell. Like every
queen this larvae will be fed extensive amounts of royal jelly.
The worker bees will raise a queen under different circumstances. In this case,
the queen in not dead but rather the colony believes the queen is getting too
old. As the queen gets older her pheromone output diminishes. Thus deeming the
queen less useful to the colony and the colony eventually decides to replace
her. The worker bees will do the same process as if the queen died. The only
difference is that once that replacement queen has been born the colony
proceeds in killing the older queen by clustering around her until she dies of
overheating. The bees also use this for defense purposes in case a swaps or an unknown bee decides to disturbs the colony.
On the other hand, a new queen does not always mean bad news. The queen herself
can lay a new queen or in this case an heir. This only happens when the queen
feels that she has accomplished her duty to one hive and leaves to create
another. Before she begins her journey she first lays multiple eggs in queen
cells. Once the new queens are capped and before they emerge the old queen and
60% of the worker bees leave the original location. This is called swarming.
The queen is unique to most colonies since most colonies only have one queen.
She provides continues life to her colony. However, she can be replaced if the
colony or the queen chooses to.
Stay tuned in for later blog post concerning the other caste of bees in the colony. Next up is the worker bees and their multiple roles throughout their 30 day lifetime.
Written by Dulay
No comments:
Post a Comment