Page 68 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

66 THE MIRACLE OF THE HONEYBEE

The Queen’s First Days
Following her larval stage, the queen goes
through the pupal phase, just like all other
bees, and emerges as an adult queen 16 days
after the egg phase. In size, she is rather
larger than the workers, and rather longer
than the male drones.
To help ensure the security of the hive, and
bearing all potential circumstances in mind,
the workers raise several queens at a time, not
just one. In the event that any harm befalls the
old queen, a new queen immediately begins
to be raised. The first thing she does is to
move around the combs until she finds an un-
covered cell with honey in it. She eats the
honey she finds and rapidly moves around
the other combs. Her objective is to find and
kill the other pupating, potential queens. As
soon as she finds another unhatched queen,
she uses her lower jaw to tear open the cell in
which the queen pupa lies, and stings her
rival. Alternatively, she may simply leave the
cell cap open and leave the queen to be de-
stroyed by the workers.
If the queen encounters another adult
queen in the hive, the two attack each other
in a fight to the death, which contest is de-
cided when one manages to sting the other.
But this is not a frequent occurrence in the
hive, because queens confront one another
As soon as the queen bee emerges
only if the existing queen is very old or has
from the cell, the first thing she
not yet left the colony to establish a new does is to destroy the other queen
in the hive. These photos show
queens fighting to the death.