14.Honey bees create a new queen bee A Lecture By Mr. Allah Dad Khan Former DG Agriculture Extension KPK Province Peshawar

3.  The queen honey bee is
fundamental to a colony’s
survival and function. She is
the only member of the hive
capable of producing more
female offspring to keep
the colony going. The
chemical pheromones
produced by a queen bee
impart a unique identity to
each colony and its mem
bers. The presence of these
pheromones also keeps the
colony cohesive and
orderly.

4.  The Queen is the only
sexually productive
female in the colony and
thus is the mother of all
drones, workers, and
future queens. Her
capacity for laying eggs
is outstanding; her daily
output often exceeds
2000 eggs, the weight of
which is equivalent to
that of her own body

5.  Anatomically, the queen is
strikingly different from the
drones and workers. Her
body is long, with a much
larger abdomen than a
worker bee. Her mandibles,
or jaws, contain sharp cutting
teeth, whereas her offspring
have toothless jaws. The
queen bee lacks the working
tools possessed by worker
bees, such as pollen baskets,
beeswax-secreting glands,
and a well-developed honey
sac.

6.  There is normally only
one Queen in the colony
and once mated (in the
first three weeks of her
life) she stays inside the
hive to lay eggs (except
when she is swarming).
She is genetically
identical to workers but
more developed due to
the large consumption of
Royal Jelly when she was
in the larval stages.

7.  The Queen can live up to five
years, but is of very little value
to the colony after three years
because her laying capacity
reduces with age. She is
constantly fed and groomed by
the worker bees and produces a
pheromone called “Queen
substance” that acts as a scent
which informs the colony that a
viable Queen is present. If a
Queen is removed or lost from
the colony workers will notice in
less than thirty minutes and
become very agitated and
prepare to rear new Queens.

8.  The queen honey bee is the
largest bee in the colony and the
only bee capable of laying eggs.
A larva which is about 2 days old
will be selected by the workers
to be reared as the queen. She
will emerge from her cell 11
days later to mate in flight with
approximately 18 drone (male)
bees.
 During this mating, she receives
several million sperm cells,
which last her entire life span of
nearly two years. Ten days after
mating, the queen honey bee will
begin to lay eggs. She is capable
of laying up to 3,000 eggs in
one day.

9.  Step 1: Bees
construct up to 20
wax queen cells.

10.  Step 2: The current
queen lays fertilized
eggs in each queen
cell (or in the case of
the death of the
queen, some existing
eggs under three
days old will be
converted to queen
cells by the method
in the following
step).

11.  Step 3: The young
nurse bees feed the
young queen larvae
with a special rich
creamy food called
Royal Jelly and
extend the cell
downwards until it
is about 25mm in
length.

12.  Step 4: About nine
days after laying,
the first queen cell
is sealed with a
layer of wax.

13.  Step 5: Assuming a new queen
is being made because of an
overpopulation within the hive,
a large swarm, called the
prime swarm, of bees leaves
the hive, led by the older
bees. The old queen gets
starved so she is thinner and
able to fly with the swarm and
they go off scouting for a new
place to create a
colony. During their trip, the
swarm will take frequent
breaks to send out scouts to
go search on their own. The
scouts report back and from
this information, they choose
the best spot to go next until
they finally settle on an
optimal location.

14.  Step 6: Back in the hive,
about a week later, the first
of the new queens will leave
her cell. The new queen
will then either choose to
locate and kill her sister
potential queens by
stinging them through the
wax wall of their cells or
she will take a small swarm
and go start a new hive
somewhere, particularly if
the hive is still somewhat
crowded. If she leaves,
then the next to emerge
from her cell will make the
same decision. Eventually
one will decide to stay

15.  Step 7: The young
queen flies around
and orients herself
to her new
surroundings.

16.  Step 8: The queen
will take several
mating flights and
will mate with up to
20 male bees called
drones; the drones
will die after
mating.

17.  Step 9: A few days later,
the mated queen will
begin to lay fertilized
eggs at a rate of about
2000 per day. Fertilized
eggs become female
worker
bees. Unfertilized eggs
get fertilized by male
drones and become new
drones. At any given
time in a healthy hive,
there is 1 queen bee, up
to 40,000 or so female
worker bees, and a few
hundred male drones.

18.  Step 10: This queen will
stay with the colony for
at least a year until a
large enough swarm is
available to go start a
new colony somewhere
else. Though the worker
bees only live 40 or so
days and drone bees die
in mating or are evicted
from the hive in the
autumn to conserve food
as they do no actual
work, the queen bee can
live up to 5 years.