Queen Bees
Any female egg can either develop into a queen or a worker bee.
It all depends on the diet of the young larvae after it hatches.
If queens are desired, nurse bees will select one or two young female larvae and feed it royal jelly.Â
Royal jelly is a special glandular secretion that triggers the development of queen-like characters.Â
The royal jelly diet must begin within a few hours of hatching and continue for the entire larval feeding cycle.
HOW A QUEEN COMES TO BE
The longer the feeding of the royal jelly, the better the queen will be.
A queen that has a royal jelly diet that is delayed or shortened won’t perform as well.
Typically, the female larvae experience accelerated growth. The nurse bees accommodate for this growth by making the larvae’s cell bigger. Queen cells are usually a peanut like shape.
The royal jelly triggers development of queen-like traits such as full size ovaries, the ability to mate and store sperm, and glands to produce queen pheremones.
