A New Queen Is Born

September is the time for new beginnings and on September 2nd a new Queen eased her way out of her cell to reign over her colony.

The Queen differs from the rest of the colony since she has fully developed reproductive organs making her the mother of the hive. It takes 16 days for the Queen Bee to mature into her fully developed self and she is specially selected by the worker bees and fed only royal jelly: a protein-rich secretion from the glands in the heads of the bee workers.

All bee larvae are fed royal jelly during the first three days of their hatching. However, after the third day, the food is exclusively for the Queen Bee. This special treatment ensures  sexually maturation since any egg has the potential to become a Queen. This, it is the diet in the larval stages that determines whether the bee will develop into a Queen or a worker bee.

The Queens are also raised in specially constructed Queen Bee cells which have a peanut-like shape and texture. When the new Queen is ready to emerge, she chews a cut around the cap of her cell.  The newly hatched Queen will then sting her unhatched rivals to death while they are still in their cells.  If two queens hatch at once, they must fight to the death.

Yan recorded this amazing phenomenon – visit our Facebook page to view the video. See the video