Mating and the Honey Bee
Worker bees raise a new queen under three conditions:
- The existing queen is failing, for example through age or injury. In this case, the queen is replaced through a process called supersedure.
- The queen dies or is removed from the hive. In this case the workers have to construct emergency queen cells to raise a new queen from existing fertilized eggs.
- The colony is preparing to swarm. In preparation for swarming, the worker bees prepare a number of queen cups, and raise the larva in each cup to be a queen. Typically, the colony will swarm, taking the existing queen with the swarm, just after sealing a queen cup in which a new queen is developing. A virgin queen emerges from the sealed queen cup eight days later.
The male bees are known as drones. A virgin queen must mate with at least one drone in order to lay fertile eggs. Shortly after she has hatched and possibly after she has killed the existing queen (her mother) the new queen takes flight with one thing on her mind. Drones.
Typically, the virgin queen bee mates with several drones during her mating flight, storing the sperm from each mating, before returning to the hive to begin laying eggs. The queen will only leave the hive again if the colony swarms. If the colony is not swarming the queen will be too heavy to fly. When in "swarming mode" the worker bees, who feed the queen, will slim her down in readiness for the flight.
The queen's life span largely depends on how much sperm she was able to store, which typically lasts from 2- 4 years. When she is no longer able to lay fertile eggs, the workers will kill her and replace her with a new queen, a process known as supercedure.
The drones are stingless and only live to mate. About 10% of the population of the hive is male. They use the resources of the hive and contribute nothing. They do not work at all and are fed by the female worker bees. These females are infertile. Only the queen bee lays eggs in the bee hive.
The video below explains the mating process.
A Queen Bee Hatching Out Of Her Cell