ALBANY, NEW YORK 42°39’09.3”N 73°45’22.4”W
HANNAH ALEXANDER
the queen bee is the mother of the colony as well as the heartbeat that keeps everything together. She’s unique because she’s the only fertile female surrounded by thousands of infertile female workers, which means she’s the only one who can lay eggs to ensure the next generation of bees. While the worker bees only live for one to two months, the queen can live for several years. As important as the queen bee is, she isn’t a monarch at all, and it’s actually the workers who really call the shots. There are two main reasons why the worker bees may choose to raise a new queen bee. Their current queen may be reaching old age and not keeping up with the necessary duties; this would be called a supersedure , where they’re raising a new queen to replace their current queen. The other reason is if they’re outgrowing their space. The current queen will leave the colony with a group of workers to find a new place to live, and the remaining bees will raise a new queen. This is called swarming , and it’s reproduction at the colony level, making two hives from one. But how does the queen become the queen? She starts out as an egg laid by the previous queen, just like any of the other bees. After three days inside the egg, she hatches out into a tiny, wiggling larva. The following three days, all of the larvae are fed a substance called royal jelly, which is secreted from the glands of nurse bees (a type of worker). At this point, it starts to change, and it’s all up to the workers! Larvae chosen to become queen bees continue to be fed royal jelly, while the larvae destined to become workers are switched to a diet of “bee bread,” a mixture of pollen and honey. This extra royal jelly that she’s fed for the next few days is what allows her reproductive organs to develop and gives her the distinct larger size. When it’s time for her metamorphosis, her queen cell is capped off with wax for eight more days, and then she emerges and the bee drama begins. With the queen being so important to the colony, the workers will increase their chances for success by raising multiple queens, but of course, there can only be one. The first queen to emerge immediately seeks out the other new queen bees and stings them to death. The queen is the only honey bee that can sting multiple times. She makes a special noise called piping that lures them into responding and quickly revealing their location to track them down. If more than one emerges simultaneously, it’s a battle royale with the winner taking the crown. Once the reigning queen has survived that stage, she’s not living the royal life yet. She still has a daunting journey ahead of her as she needs to leave the hive to mate. Since she only mates once in her life, she has to make the most of it. Male bees are called drones , and many drones from different colonies congregate together in certain locations in search of a queen to mate with. She travels to a drone congregation area and mates with multiple drones (who will all die after mating—it’s rough in the bee world!). Then, if she wasn’t eaten by birds along the way, she returns to her colony, where she’ll be welcomed back by workers who will tend to all of her needs for the rest of her life, so that she’s able to focus on her duty of laying eggs.
82
MOTHER VOLUME TWO
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease