Queens#
1 . What does it mean that a colony is “queenright”?
“Queenright” means it is a normal colony with a functioning queen.
2 . How does a queenright colony suppress workers from laying eggs?
Queen and brood pheromones suppress activation of the workers ovaries.
3 . What event causes regular workers to suddenly become laying workers?
When a colony becomes queenless, there are no queen pheromones (or brood pheromones later on) to suppress worker ovary development. In a last ditch effort workers will become “laying workers” to hopefully pass on some genes but the colony is doomed since they can only produce drones.
4 . Besides suppressing worker ovaries, what else does queen pheromone do?
Stimulates foraging
Prolongs worker life
Coordinates swarms
5 . What determines a newly hatched female larvae to become either a queen or a worker?
Depends on the diet fed to the larvae. If the larva are continually fed royal jelly, it will develop into a queen.
6 . What is “royal jelly”?
Special glandular secretion from the worker bees that triggers the development of queen characteristics.
7 . What is the relationship between the feeding of royal jelly and the quality of the queen produced?
The longer the duration of the feeding of royal jelly, the better quality of the queen produced.
8 . What does the feeding of royal jelly trigger in the developing queen cell?
Full sized ovaries
A spermatheca
Glands for producing queen pheromones
9 . What is the approximate life span of a queen?
2 to 4 years.
10 . Approximately how many eggs can a queen lay in a day?
1500
11 . What is the organ called where the queen stores sperm?
Spermatheca
12 . What is a supersedure cell?
When a colony is raising a new queen to replace the aging, ill or missing queen, they produce supersedure cells. The new queen that emerges from the cell will take over from, or supersede, the old queen if she is still present. To boost the odds of producing a healthy new queen, the colony creates several supersedure cells at the same time. In most cases, the first one to emerge will become the new queen. Beekeepers usually find supersedure cells on the comb face, extending out from the surface and hanging downwards.
13 . How do you know if a queen is old or failing?
There is spotty brood pattern on several of the brood frames. We call this shotgun brood since it resembles a shotgun spray pattern. There may be a disproportionally large number of drone cells intermixed with normal worker cells. This could be due to a number of reasons - she is running out of stored sperm in her spermatheca, she was not properly mated, she is old, failing or diseased. Remember drone cells are usually at the bottom of the frame and grouped together when there is a healthy queen.