by Francis Jock

Created on: May 19, 2008   Last Updated: May 02, 2012

Queen bees and worker bees are the most important and beneficial insects to have in your garden or orchard. They have a job in the natural world that no other insect, except perhaps the mason bee, can do with unmatched efficiency and persistence. Worker bees seek out the nectar in the flowers and in doing so spread pollen, the essential ingredient for the production of fruit, seeds and berries from flower to flower. Queen bees keep producing more worker bees at an astonishing rate, ensuring the life of the hive and the natural world itself.

In the bee keeping world, females rule. Those hard working or so-called worker bees you see busily gathering nectar from your flowers are females. In the hive, the queen bee is a female. The only male bees are called drones and their only purpose is to mate with the queen bee for reproduction. The hive-keeping and nurturing of bee larva is tirelessly looked after by female worker bees, as well.

The queen bee is the reproductive engine of the hive. Workers and drones are not capable of laying the eggs that will eventually develop into new worker bees, although an occasional replacement queen will be allowed to grow to maturity. Queen bees will lay between 1,000 to 2,000 eggs a day. Laying millions of eggs over a life time sounds like a daunting task, but queen bees are hardy creatures, living for 2 3 years, which is old age in bee world. Her male counter part, the drone, only lives for a couple of weeks and not through the winter.

Spring is the most active reproductive season of the year and this is when the queen is most actively mating. A newly matured queen bee will leave the hive for mating purposes that will endure for a few days, after which she will return to the hive to begin to fulfill her lifetime responsibility of laying eggs. Swarming, or the natural division of the hive between two queens, is a natural process that reduces the number of worker bees in the bee hive population. Bee Keepers try to discourage swarming in order to sustain the production of the bee hive.

Queens are larger than workers or drones in appearance, with a larger abdomen and shorter wings. She lacks the distinctive coloration of the other bees as well. Queens do have a stinger, which she uses to eradicate any other queen that may hatch in the hive. Unlike worker bees, queens do not have pollen baskets on her hind legs or wax producing glands. Her sole role is reproduction and these features are unnecessary for this purpose. Once the queen begins

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