Unlike working bees, which are females with an underdeveloped reproductive system, the queen bee can be fertilized and lay eggs. Her life span is about 5 years. However, the full ability to reproduce remains only the first two years. In the hive, the uterus is an equal member of the community, which largely depends on the action of working individuals.
The queen bee can lay two to three thousand eggs per day. The strength of the family directly depends on its quality. The old individual copes worse with its duties, the young one is much better. In appearance, it is very different from working bees. The uterus is several times larger, has a long abdomen, rounded on the sides. The wings cover it only half. On legs there are no devices intended for collecting pollen. The infertile young uterus looks a little different: she has a small and thin abdomen. She is distinguished by activity and agility.
The development of the queen bee occurs in a specially built queen cell. It is a gastric large cell. Worker bees feed larvae with royal jelly, which is the secret of the pharyngeal glands. Only bees and drones receive such food only the first 3 days. After that, they switch to a slightly coarser food - a mixture of pollen and honey. The uterus receives milk during the entire larval stage of development.
They start feeding her with the same product immediately after she starts laying eggs. At this time, a peculiar retinue from a group of young nurse-bees formed around her. They clean it and take care of it in every way. By increasing or decreasing the diet, working bees regulate the laying of eggs. If for some reason the family remains without a
uterus, the bees immediately begin to withdraw a new one. At the same time, they lay not one, but several uterine cells. This is explained by some features of the life of the swarm.
The young queen bee, having left the nest, first of all goes in search of another uterus, and when they meet they immediately begin to “sort out the relationship”. The strongest wins. If there are queen bees in the queen bee, the survivor will get them with her sting there too. However, working bees never allow you to destroy everyone. The fact is that a young unfertilized uterus can simply fly away. In this case, the bees will have spare specimens from which a new uterus will be hatched.
Within two weeks after leaving the nest, the queen bee leaves the hive several times in order to mark its location. On the fifteenth day of life, she flies out again already to meet the drones. In flight, she is accompanied by a huge number of bees. It moves so fast that only the strongest drone can catch it. Mating usually lasts 1-3 seconds. It occurs at an altitude of 5-30 m.
The uterus mates most often not with one, but with 9-10 drones. On the third or fourth day, it becomes fertile and after that it begins to lay fertilized eggs, from which the working bees then hatch.
The fate of the drones is rather sad. Mates in flight with the uterus immediately die. Those who were not so nimble in the fall, when the family begins to lack food, worker bees are simply expelled from the hive.
Some beekeepers, if the family is left without a uterus, buy a new one. Currently, thanks to the Internet, this is not too difficult. Some people independently practice the withdrawal of queen bees. This is a rather complicated matter and requires experience. The most important thing in this case is to choose a good parental family. To do this, comparisons are made in the apiary. It often happens that under equal conditions, some families give a lot more honey than everyone else. It is they that are suitable for obtaining queens and drones.