One of the questions we get asked the most by people on courses is How Is A New Queen Bee Made? In this blog we look at the incredible process of the making of a new queen.
When Will Bees Make A New Queen?
If the old queen has died or is getting too old or if the colony has decided to swarm then they need to make a new queen bee.
How Do They Do It?
The process is truly amazing.
The bees take an egg or a larva up to two days old and put it in a special cell known as a queen cell. You can tell this is a queen cell in that it will point downwards rather than sticking out like a normal cell. When they first start to make the cell it is called a cup as it looks a little bit like an upside down cup. They don’t bother to put a handle on it though.
Once they have put the egg or larva into the cell and begun to feed it royal jelly the cell or cup is known as “charged”
The egg will take three days to hatch into a larva in the same way as if it were a normal worker bee.
They then feed it a special substance called royal jelly for five days. the royal jelly is the white, milky substance in the picture above. At this stage the cell points down and looks like a peanut as against the normal hexagon cells.
After eight days (three as an egg and five as a larva) the bees seal the cell and the larva begins to change into a queen bee. We know it will become a queen as it has only been fed on royal jelly. Normal bees are fed on royal jelly and bee bread.
After a further eight days the queen will cut a trapdoor in the bottom of the cell and drop out into the hive
The bees may well make many queens but the first one out is the winner as she will go around and kill all of her sisters.
Once the new queen has emerged she will do some orientation flights and then she has a maximum of three weeks in which to get mated.
She mates on the wing with approximately fifteen drones (male bees) who are from other colonies in the area and this way she preserves genetic diversity.
Once mated she can live for up to five years (although nearer three is the norm) laying between 1,500 and 2,000 eggs per day during the season.
If you want to receive regular updates from the wonderful world of bees then please follow this link and SUBSCRIBE by filling in your email address in the bottom right hand side of the page.