Talk:Queen bee

Queen bee nutrition

This article describes recent findings according to which it is not the presence of royal jelly in the diet that makes a bee a queen, but the absence of honey and pollen in her diet: "It turns out, it’s the other way around. Not feeding an immature queen pollen and honey is what makes her royal, not her exclusive access to royal jelly." https://www.wired.com/2015/09/royal-jelly-isnt-makes-queen-bee-queen-bee/ Hopefully someone with expert knowledge can verify/update this (I just happened to find it, and am by no means knowledgeable enough to verify it). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.7.11 (talk) 02:24, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Untitled I

References -

The link for "Bees Gone Wild" takes you to a site advertising building your own web site, which must be in error. Do you mean the Bees Gone Wild Apiaries, in Derry, PA? If so the link should be: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeod3nx/id1.html

As a side issue, I'd like to find a link, article, or publication dealing with how to retrieve the queen from a swarm that has left the hive and taken up residence elsewhere. This must be a very specialized, difficult thing to do. There is a brief portion in this video that describes someone who rescues a swarm (queen plus workers who have swarmed with her)and sets up a new hive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoeQodrVoM but it doesn't give much information.

Thanks. M.W.MW (talk) 14:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Untitled II

I have actually heard the piping of queen bees. It sounds like the peep of a peeper frog or the sound of a rather high-pitched whistle or harmonica.

Research in the 60s (?) indicated that the body of the queen produces a hormone that inhibits queen-rearing behavior on the part of worker bees. She can only produce a certain amount. So the more bees there are in a colony the lower the concentration of this hormone. When it falls below a critical value, then the queen-rearing behavior is released for normal swarming. Should the queen be killed the concentration of the hormone falls quickly to zero and the workers select several of the recently laid eggs to rear as queens.

I think that the article should reflect this fact.

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Who will be first to fill in the taxonomy? RedWolf 06:20, Nov 27, 2003 (UTC)

Surely there is an article on the honeybee. Presumably the taxonomy stuff would go there.

Patrick0Moran 07:18, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

I added the links back because of two reasons: 1) people who work on articles of colors can look what links there and add this to the information about uses of colors, and 2) it enables colorblind people to actually read the article. I hope it's aestethically pleasing as well :) Nikola 08:11, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Incorporating other articles into this article

I'm looking for information on bees. I found the information about one aspect of the bee colony, ie the queen scattered around on four seperate page entitled

1. Queen bee
2. Virgin queen (with a disambig. from Elizabeth I of England)
3. Piping queens (describing the noise angry females of the species make)
4. Supersedure (describing the process by which one queen replaces another)

Why spread all this stuff around when it can be neatly and conveniently placed in one article? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. Anyone looking up bees wants the info in one place. To have different articles for hives, swarms, piping queens etc etc etc is superfluous.

I'm not suggesting that any of the information is superfluous, just the superfluity of seperate articles. If anyone objects, they can put it all back. I'll leave the other pages where they are for a few days, but will transfer any discussion pertaining to the other three topics listed above to this page. Unfortunately, the history of the editting will be lost.

--Amandajm 07:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Piping note

The piping sound is a G sharp or A natural.

Couldn't this vary from species to species? (A larger queen might produce a lower note, for instance?) - furrykef (Talk at me) 21:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Maximum temperature for Raw Honey

I understand to be called raw, honey must not be heated above a certain temperature. I don't know what those limits are, but I am under the impression it has something to do with destroying enzymes in the honey. Does anyone know the limits?

transferred by --Amandajm 07:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There have been articles and discussions in bee journals for years on the subject. As far as I know there is no official standard, at least not in the US. "Raw" means whatever you like it to mean. Since the bees heat the hive to about 95 F or so and since all liquid honey is at least coarsely filtered to get out chunks of wax and dead bee parts, and since there is no official designation about how finely fliltered and how high a temperature constitutes raw, the term by itself doesn't mean anything. Of course if you know your honey producer personally you can ask what they do, or in this case, don't do to your honey.

Michael Bush (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I found an article on the net here which gives some temperatures (in Fahrenheit) to match the temperature in a honey super in Summer. Honey in storage does (mine does) crystalize over time, and when you need to bottle some more it helps to have a honey heater to bring it back to liquid form. Sting au Buzz Me... 22:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit history of Virgin queen

• (cur) (last) 04:54, 27 May 2006 XC0000005 (Talk | contribs) (Reword some unclear sentences, expand (minorly))
• (cur) (last) 22:00, 4 May 2006 Swatjester (Talk | contribs) m (Reverted edits by 151.37.129.122 (talk) to last version by XC0000005)
• (cur) (last) 21:59, 4 May 2006 151.37.129.122 (Talk)
• (cur) (last) 18:06, 15 December 2005 XC0000005 (Talk | contribs) (Reword to fix description of virgin queens (mingling with other bees doesn't make them harder to find, it's the fact that they skitter off that does it.).)
• (cur) (last) 17:45, 11 October 2005 Keenan Pepper (Talk | contribs) m (grammar & style)
• (cur) (last) 13:00, 5 October 2005 Appleseed (Talk | contribs) (tweak category)
• (cur) (last) 00:28, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Work)
• (cur) (last) 05:07, 16 August 2005 Leonard G. (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 03:21, 15 May 2005 Nameneko (Talk | contribs) m (sp)
• (cur) (last) 20:34, 9 May 2005 71.99.220.87 (Talk)
• (cur) (last) 06:40, 25 April 2005 68.39.174.150 (Talk) (Rearrainge)
• (cur) (last) 19:32, 15 April 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 09:20, 14 April 2005 Allard (Talk | contribs) m
• (cur) (last) 05:40, 20 March 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 02:29, 14 February 2005 Pollinator (Talk | contribs) (flesh out article)
• (cur) (last) 03:54, 1 February 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)

Edit history of Piping queens

• (cur) (last) 00:50, 28 June 2006 NeonMerlin (Talk | contribs) m (sp)
• (cur) (last) 22:27, 26 May 2006 XC0000005 (Talk | contribs) (Revised, added supersedure to reasons why there's be multiple queens)
• (cur) (last) 13:00, 5 October 2005 Appleseed (Talk | contribs) (tweak category)
• (cur) (last) 16:59, 26 September 2005 MacsBug (Talk | contribs) m (Fixed spelling error in top section)
• (cur) (last) 03:05, 9 September 2005 Kjkolb (Talk | contribs) (wikified further as possible and removed tag)
• (cur) (last) 03:47, 2 September 2005 Kent Wang (Talk | contribs) m (copy edit)
• (cur) (last) 00:32, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Some work)
• (cur) (last) 00:29, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Added template)
• (cur) (last) 00:05, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Again)
• (cur) (last) 00:05, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Fix bad link)
• (cur) (last) 00:05, 26 August 2005 68.39.174.230 (Talk) (Some work, needs more)
• (cur) (last) 01:06, 16 May 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs) (→See also)
• (cur) (last) 01:00, 16 May 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 20:50, 14 May 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 03:43, 14 May 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)

Edit History of Supersedure

• (cur) (last) 17:00, 12 June 2006 Larsinio (Talk | contribs) m
• (cur) (last) 01:02, 20 May 2006 Bryan Derksen (Talk | contribs) (replace overly broad see also list with just those entries that seem most relevant to the article)
• (cur) (last) 23:01, 23 March 2006 Mirv (Talk | contribs) (xref)
• (cur) (last) 18:25, 18 March 2006 Bluebot (Talk | contribs) (bold formatting title using AWB)
• (cur) (last) 04:03, 6 December 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 02:07, 12 November 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs) m (Supercedure moved to Supersedure)
• (cur) (last) 10:26, 11 November 2005 158.36.44.66 (Talk) ("supercession" and "supercedure" changed because word does not exist (verb is latin "sedere" to sit))
• (cur) (last) 02:29, 26 August 2005 Leonard G. (Talk | contribs) (rm unsatisfied links)
• (cur) (last) 01:27, 25 August 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 04:35, 23 August 2005 Leonard G. (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 04:30, 23 August 2005 Leonard G. (Talk | contribs) (Forced supercedure, balling the queen)
• (cur) (last) 05:22, 16 August 2005 Leonard G. (Talk | contribs)
• (cur) (last) 06:28, 2 April 2005 FirstPrinciples (Talk | contribs) (update link)
• (cur) (last) 04:10, 10 March 2005 Shoefly (Talk | contribs)

Moving of histories

These histories are inactive, but at least reveal who has contributed to the articles. --Amandajm 08:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Virgin Queens sting rivals

The article indicates that a virgin queen will kill potential rivals by stinging them. But I had heard that queens have no stingers - that part having been modified for egg laying. So do they sting, or possibly bite their rivals?

Paul epalb@honey.email.ne.jp

Whoever told you that queens have no stingers was incorrect. I can't speak for every species of bee but honeybee queens certainly have stingers. It is part of the ovipositor but that does not preclude it's use as a stinger. It is different from the worker bee's stinger in that it is smooth instead of barbed but that's about it. Rossami (talk) 20:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

That reminds me of someone who confidently told me on the basis of his own experience that carpenter bees do not have stingers. I caught a female carpenter bee and identified a very large and efficient looking stinger. I told my friend that he probably had been playing with a drone. P0M 21:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about "queen substance"

The last time I read anything in book form on the subject it was affirmed that the pheromone that workers lick from the body of the queen not only inhibits workers from laying eggs, but it also inhibits them from making queen cells. If the queen dies or the population grows so large that the pheromone is too diluted by the time it is shared out among all the bees, then workers will start to make queen cells. Have researchers revised this finding? P0M 21:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That's my understanding also - the presence of Q substance inhibits Q cell building. Dublinblue (Simon in Dublin) (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive by Tom Seeley: "the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)."

Michael Bush (talk) 18:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Beekeeping?

There are a lot of interjections in this article about beekeeping - I imagine that a lot of the editing of this article is done by beekeepers. However, I think it somewhat distracts from the flow of the article. Tiki2099 (talk) 22:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Queen killing worker bees?

I saw a documentary on bees that stated how if a worker bee lays an egg and the queen discovers it, by detection of pheromones on the egg, she will kill the egg and also the bee that laid it. I was wondering if anyone has a reference for this behaviour by the queen bee. It seems like something that should be included in the article. Alialiac (talk) 06:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Workers will sometimes lay eggs in the absence of a queen or if she's failing. I've not heard of an existing queen killing the worker though? There is a wiki article here Laying_worker_bee about laying workers. Typically the eggs are all male (drones). 107.4.200.112 (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Supersedure ≠ Emergency cell

Supersedure cells (including insurance cups) are formed while the original queen is still alive and possibly still laying. Emergency cells are created when there is "no" queen. Additionally, "balling" is not the only method a previous queens are deposed. Old queens often produce insufficient pheromones, so the attendant bees stop feeding them - and in turn they dies of starvation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.87.238.194 (talk) 15:06, 24 July 2014 (UTC) The picture does look like emergency cells, not supersedure cells. Tried to edit to correct but I think I messed it up for worse. Now it is correct "supersedure cell", but for an emergency cell, and the file name is still wrong. Someone with a bit more of Wiki savvy please correct. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.87.238.194 (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

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Nonsense, corrections and additions

I read this article a few years ago. Since then a few things were changed and added. Some of the stuff I read is incorrect.

1. "All of the healthy male bees mate with the queen, and she spends the warm season laying eggs."

It'a not true that all drones mate with the queen. The strongest and at most 20 of them mate with the queen. Also, the queen does not mate with her own drones, something that is not clear in the article.

2. "Eggs that are strong and up to the queen bee's standards are given extra hormones, and are put into what are known as "queen cups" for further development. There will be several eggs dosed with the queen pheromones, but only one will grow strong enough to hatch."

Eggs are not fed hormones. They are fed royal jelly if the eggs need to turn into queens. Also, eggs are not moved/put into queen cups. Queen cups are built around the regular fertilized eggs.

3. "When the new queen is born, the old queen flies away from the hive like the male bees, and dies."

This is not true because the queen that flies away settles with about half of the colony she was leading into a new place and continues to lead the colony until she is replaced. The queen does not automatically die after swarming.

4. "As many as 21 virgin queens have been counted in a single large swarm.^{[citation needed]}"

Unless somebody provides a source this smells to me like nonsense that should be removed.

5. "The queens of Africanized bees produce more vigorous and frequent bouts of piping.^{[citation needed]}"

Unless somebody provides a source this smells to me like nonsense that should be removed.

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

This is true and "less than 1% of worker-laid eggs are diploid in other honey bee races" (see https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN91600.pdf).

7. "Although the name might imply it, a queen bee does not directly control the hive. Her sole function is to serve as the reproducer."

This is not true because the queen does a lot of work with pheromones in order to direct the colony and balance/assign tasks to worker bees based on the needs of the colony (see http://vri.cz/docs/vetmed/56-6-265.pdf). It can be argued that the queen works harder than the worker bees. In fact, "workers spend more time resting and patrolling the nest than they do anything else." (see https://americanbeejournal.com/the-tasks-of-a-worker-honey-bee).

ICE77 (talk) 07:33, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@ICE77: Thanks for the comments. It's been lying around a while, and most were already taken care of - I took the liberty to address the last few comments that you left. effeietsanders 21:42, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

effeietsanders, thanks for the update. ICE77 (talk) 23:24, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Apis mellifera scutellata 1355021.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for January 13, 2022. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2022-01-13. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:42, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. The queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the hive. This close-up photograph shows numerous workers of the East African lowland honey bee surrounding a queen of the European honey bee. The queen bee is marked with a pink dot on the top of its thorax for identification.

Photograph credit: Scott Bauer

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Life expectancy?

The replacement of an aging queen is discussed but not its life expectancy… Some sites say 1-2 years, some longer time periods. I suppose this depends on species and climate? David.Monniaux (talk) 08:08, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Identification section, queen marking color code table -- light vs dark mode (bad in dark)

In the Identification section of the article, there is a table with colors used to mark queen bees. White, yellow, red, green, blue. The white, yellow, and blue aren't really those colors when viewed in dark mode. The white is black, the yellow is extremely dark and yellow-ish, and the blue is very light blue. Red and green are lighter versions of themselves (less "primary," if you will). To choose light/dark mode I'm using the toggle on the Personal Settings menu, i.e., clicking the person icon in the top right corner. I'm not sure what to do about this but thought I'd bring it up.

Below are some screen shots showing what they look like. Notice, in dark mode, the washed out/strange colors.

Light mode color chart -- normal.

Dark mode color chart -- not good.

Location of light/dark mode toggle in Personal Settings dropdown (just below "Beta").

I'm using up-to-date Firefox on up-to-date Mac. Turning off AdBlock doesn't make any difference.

One thing that might give a glue is this: as I was uploading these, I noticed that when I uploaded the first one (regular, "light mode," example) it gave me a preview that was reversed (dark) -- and it had the same washed out colors. These are .png files, btw. thundt (talk) 01:13, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Concerns with the most recent edit to Queen Rearing section

Starting from "Examples are the beestkeeping graftless queen rearing kit", this article begins to feel dangerously close to running afoul of Wikipedia:PROMO. There are several new references to "beestkeeping" products where before there were none. Lines like "The fears of a beekeeper who uses grafting—such as “Will my hand shake?”, “Can I see the larvae clearly?”, or “Will I harm them while transferring them?”—do not be beekeepers." read like something that has been google/AI-translated from another language. I became curious, and took the liberty of googling beestkeeping, and in doing so, have determined that the text added in the edit is in fact taken *directly* from the beestkeeping website itself. As such, I intend to revert to previous after making this post.

That being said, I'll pretend for a moment that this wasn't taken word for word from the beestkeeping website, and list some of the other issues I noticed for the sake of completeness and further justifying deletion/reversion.

The cited references have limited bearing on the text of the edit

20: links not to an actual article, but to some site that I think says something along the lines of using AI to search for beekeeping articles? (don't know french)

21,22: links to (the same) real article. The article does describe some common grafting and graftless techniques. Unlike the edit, however, the article never mentions beestkeeping. The article does acknowledge briefly that grafting might not be for everyone. However, it does not editorialize as to whether one is superior to the other, as this edit seems to do. This article does not at any point tell anyone "do not be beekeepers".

23: real article. Never mentions beestkeeping. The edit takes a decidedly negative "sky is falling" hyperbolic approach to grafting. The article, instead notes there are pros and cons to both approaches

24: real article. This article, unlike the others, actually appears to seriously address some potential drawbacks with grafting vs CC. However, rather than discussing the cited article in earnest fashion, the edit appears to be a plug for beestkeeping

Was going to continue from here, but decided against it. As noted, this edit comes word for word from a website selling a product. A product that is now mentioned in this article. A product that was not mentioned before. I think this alone should be justification enough for reversion. ~2026-32698-56 (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Agree that the added content carries an aroma of promotion. The same content was added to four articles, which smelled like spam to me. I removed it from the other three, letting it stand in this article, in hope that discussion would ensue. Thank you for starting that.

It has been decades since I was an active beekeeper, including a summer spent inspecting hives for the state agriculture department. I am no longer current with the literature, so I have no idea whether this no-contact method of transferring eggs is a thing that is widespread, or is likely to become so. With that being said, if consensus emerges to delete it here, I would support it. I see it has been removed. Thanks again, Just plain Bill (talk) 14:57, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I checked their contributions and saw you had reverted elsewhere. I initially intended to put this to the talk page for discussion, especially since I am not and have never been a beekeeper, and I assumed you had your reasons for not reverting here. When I randomly stumbled on this article I had ... concerns... but I literally thought "beestkeeping" was just a typo so I assumed it was more of a NPV/in-need-of-edits/corrections type of thing. Then I googled "beestkeeping" and realized it wasn't a typo, which led to me looking into things a bit more.

Once I realized the text came directly from the "beestkeeping" website though (and given everything else), I felt this started to supersede my lack of knowledge/authority and worst come to worst, someone more knowledgable could always undo/make their own edits. A couple of the cited articles did seem informative (for me who knows nothing), and I felt the last article brought up what could be an interesting topic for discussion for this or another page (assuming its findings bear fruit, anyway). I couldn't really leave a bunch of dead links though. Those with a vested interest in this page are welcome to look at the referenced articles in article history/consider their relevance/utility in terms of this article, and as noted it is possible someone may choose to take the ... essentially, promotional content, and modify it into something usable (though unfortunately, I suspect this would mostly amount to writing everything from scratch).

Ultimately, what pushed me over the edge was that I couldn't vouch for this product, and I was unsure how long it might take to reach a consensus on what to do. It was my determination on dual fronts that any harm coming from reverting the edit then and there would be lesser than my attempting to rewrite it into something authoritative or allowing the advertisement to remain. At least, until someone else came along.

In any case, I, who hold no authority here (and should not, as noted above), would be against reverting my reversion, though I acknowledge it was perhaps a bit presumptuous to decide this unilaterally (even if the reasoning is facially sound). This does not necessarily mean I think the underlying subject matter was inappropriate for this page however. I don't know enough to know. I merely think the edit in question and its presentation of the subject matter was inappropriate for the reasons noted. ~2026-32698-56 (talk) 00:39, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, I think removal was the right thing to do. Not any kind of authority on modern beekeeping practice, nor with any kind of administrative clout on Wikipedia, I recognize FUD when I see it, and consider it a diagnostic feature of BS. For example, The fears of a beekeeper who uses grafting—such as “Will my hand shake?”, “Can I see the larvae clearly?”, or “Will I harm them while transferring them?” does not prompt me to feel any need for deeper scrutiny of the material in question. Thanks! Just plain Bill (talk) 13:11, 3 June 2026 (UTC)