Queen bee

[1] Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature.

There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her.

[2] During the warm parts of the year, female "worker" bees leave the hive every day to collect nectar and pollen.

Queens are fed only royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers.

As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees.

They are hard to spot while inspecting a frame, because they run across the comb, climbing over worker bees if necessary, and may even take flight if sufficiently disturbed.

Some virgins have been seen to escape the hive to avoid being killed and seek out another without a queen, such as in the eusocial bee Melipona scutellaris.

[5] When the after-swarm settles into a new home, the virgins will then resume normal behavior and fight to the death until only one remains.

Unlike the worker bees, the queen's stinger is not barbed and she is able to sting repeatedly without dying.

It is postulated that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and show the workers their willingness to fight.

If the weather holds, she may return to the drone congregation area for several days until she is fully mated.

If she is unable to fly for several days because of bad weather and remains unmated, she will become a "drone layer."

[9] Though timing can vary, matings usually take place between the sixth and tenth day after the queen emerges.

Egg laying usually begins 2 to 3 days after the queen returns to the beehive, but can start earlier than this.

Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency.

This makes her unable to properly place her eggs at the bottom of the brood cell; the workers detect this and then rear replacement queens.

Death through balling is accomplished by surrounding the queen and raising her body temperature, causing her to overheat and die.

The mnemonic taught to assist beekeepers in remembering the colour order is Will You Raise Good Bees (white, yellow, red, green, blue).

[13][14] Sometimes tiny convex disks marked with identification numbers (Opalithplättchen) are used when a beekeeper has many queens born in the same year‍— a method that can also be used to keep multiple bees in the same hive under observation for research purposes.

[16] In the Doolittle method, the beekeeper grafts larvae, which are 24 hours or less of age, into a bar of queen cell cups.