A queen can lay up to 1,000 eggs per day. A queen’s main duties are in the laying of eggs. If she isn’t fed, her health will suffer, as she relies on the workers completely to care for her. All of these are done for her by the worker bees. A queen bee doesn’t feed herself or groom and clean herself. However, despite having many ‘princesses,’ only one would survive to be the queen.Ī queen bee is the biggest bee in the colony, but that doesn’t make her a bigger threat. The contingency plan works, and bees are never left queenless. Out of the several cells created, some will survive. This is done to ensure that even in the case of a tragedy or attack, not all hope of having a queen will be lost. Worker bees always set up more than one cell for the chosen “princess” larvae. This secretion allows them to develop reproductive abilities and other abilities, such as their long life span. Queen bees develop from larvae set aside by the worker bees and fed a special secretion of proteins called royal jelly. This ensures that only one queen is left standing. They then battle each other to the death, once they meet. If two queens hatch at the same time, they go around killing off the rest. She then kills them with her stinger before they hatch to ensure her position as queen. This means, at the time of maturity, there’ll be several young, virgin queens who’d be fit to be the queen bee.ĭue to this, the first queen to hatch as a virgin queen seeks out the other cells holding the rest of her sisters. There are always several larvae chosen to be raised as queens. Queen bees use their stingers for the purpose of ensuring their position as queen. This means that it is very rare for a queen bee to sting people and other mammals. A worker bee will only sting you if you have hurt it, or if you are threatening the hive.Ī queen bee does not have any of these defense mechanisms as she is not concerned with the defense of the hive. Why Do Bees Sting?įor bees, stinging is a defense mechanism. This is how bees die after stinging.Ī queen bee, however, has a smooth stinger so she can sting multiple times. In the process of trying, she’ll end up tearing herself apart, leaving behind her stinger and some of her abdomen. Due to the barbed stinger, a bee will be unable to pull out her stinger when she stings. Yes, queen bees sting, although their stingers are different from those of the other female bees. Worker bees have barbed stingers - this means that, if they sting, the stinger gets stuck in the mammal’s skin to continue pumping poison.
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