In almost every corner of the globe you can find such an insect as a bee. During their existence, they always obeyed clear rules and laws, which is why they became known. The special roles of the behavior of each representative of the swarm, its social role in the life of the hive and its duties were formed. But one of the main and important representatives of the family has always been the queen bee, she is the queen, uniting the family and creating its new members.

Description and characteristics of the queen bee

The bee is the true queen of the hive, as it performs one of the main functions - reproduction. If the family does not have special fetal eggs, from which queens appear, then the swarm dies. The new queen emerges from an egg sown by her predecessor. It is placed in a special bowl, which is attached to the comb. After the larva appears, it is intensely fed with royal jelly, which contains useful and nutrients, after which it turns into a chrysalis.

The mother liquor itself is removed from the bowl, previously laying the uterine feed in it - the milk itself. During this time, the working bees rebuild the bowl in the mother liquor. The queen appears on the sixteenth day, she gnaws at the mother queen and crawls out to freedom already the new queen of the hive.

The average size of a bee is about 2-2.5 cm (about two times larger than an ordinary bee). She has an elongated body, the belly is larger than the wings, and her eyes are smaller than other insects. The ovaries are well developed in the bee, which is its main feature. Finding a queen in the hive is not easy enough, unless you consider the honeycombs in close-up. But you can still determine it - it will move slower and stand out in size against the general background.

Did you know? The queen of bees also has a sting, and she can use it many times - this does no harm to her and is not fatal.

What work do the uterus do?

The queen bee is one of the main links in the existence of the entire hive and its functioning. One of the most important tasks is entrusted to her - the continuation of the genus of the entire family, the unification of bees, their management, she soothes the hive if the bees feel danger. In order to understand why this individual is the main one in the life of the family, you need to understand how society is organized in the hive.

The whole family consists of bees male and female, that is, drones, bees and other working bees. Only this bee can be the continuer of the genus., since the rest of the reproductive system is underdeveloped, they can only collect nectar, pollen, build honeycombs and perform other functions, but not lay eggs. In contrast to them, the uterus has a well-developed reproductive system, but the wax glands do not work, the proboscis is two times shorter than that of ordinary bees, therefore it cannot perform the usual other functions. The main goal is to lay eggs. On average, it can lay from 1,5 thousand eggs per day (in summer).

Did you know? The queen's character is very calm, she is always phlegmatic and rather slow. The insect very rarely leaves the hive and only to mate or when swarming.

Varieties of bees

There are several types of bees. Some appear in a natural way, for example, swarm or fistulous, but for the removal of the uterus of a quiet shift, a person often needs to make certain efforts.

Fistulous, or rescue

Fistulous uterus appears only in an emergency case - if the previous one suddenly died or disappeared without leaving a successor. The bees very quickly feel the loss, since the queen is responsible for the order in the family. Because insects begin to actively and intensively search for a new uterus to replace the missing. From the anxiety in the hive rises a big hum and whistle. For urgent hatching of a new uterus, worker bees begin to feed all the larvae only with large quantities of royal milk - usually simple larvae are given only two days, and then they are transferred to a specially prepared mixture of honey with bee bread. The Queen is given it all sixteen days.

After intensive feeding, dozens of new queens appear, usually twenty or thirty. And the first thing they do after the appearance is that they begin to actively kill each other with stings, competing for the championship. As a result, there should be only one that occupies a vacant place.

Rescue queens have one big drawback - they do not differ in great egg production, therefore they are often replaced by queen-change queens or swarm ones after some time. This is due to the fact that they develop in very tight cells (approximately 5 mm, while the ordinary queen develops almost in a centimeter mother liquor). The beekeeper can thin out the number of cells of the rescue queen, but this is a very laborious, long process that requires caution, so this rarely happens.

Swarm

Are displayed if the size of the hive is too large and there is a need to create a new swarm. Usually, the appearance of swarm queens is preceded by some signs, such as an increase in the number of swarm bowls on the edges of the combs, the family ceases to build new combs and does not grow larvae. In the swarm mother liquor there are several cells with new swarm queens, therefore there can be several swarms at once. As soon as the insect emerges from the mother liquor, the swarm is ready to leave the colony, even if the uterus is infertile (has not yet mated with the male).

The swarm queen, when leaving the hive for the first three days, makes test flights over long distances. She remembers the terrain, the position of the hive and its size, trying to navigate. Such a flyby can last from a couple of hours to a whole day.

Important! The digging process is the division of the colony into parts. Adult mature uterus are separated from the family, which are sent with part of the working bees to create new hives. But swarm fishing is a very complicated process, because it is much easier to prevent it even at the stage of maturation of new queens - the beekeeper can remove as many swarm queens as he needs.

Quiet shift

The strongest, most persistent and best uterus in nature. Their appearance occurs in two cases - if the old queen is sick or already very old, or the beekeeper creates the conditions for her to appear. The old bee quietly and without the involvement of other bees lays an egg in a specially designated cell. After that, she continues her usual activities and waits until a new queen appears - usually in sixteen days. The young successor immediately kills her mother and takes her place in the life of the hive. Such bees are of the highest quality and can create a very strong swarm.

Video: Silent change of the uterus

Features of the development of the queen bee

Among the features of the development of queen bees stand out:

• uterus appears only from fetal eggs;
• if the colony does not have fetal eggs, the whole swarm dies, since it cannot bring out any queen;
• a fetal egg can be laid only by a fetal individual;
• the queen lays an egg, but simple bees take care of him;
• for normal hatching, the insect needs constant feeding - after the egg is placed in the cell, the bees feed the larva for the first seven days, after which the mother liquor is already rebuilt;
• the period from the seventh to sixteenth day is the most important in the development of the future queen - at this moment she is actively growing and her reproductive system is being formed;
• in the first days after emergence, an individual cannot lay eggs, that is, it is infertile;
• also the first task for her is the fight against other competitors (if it is a swarm uterus or fistulous);
• the main goal of the young queen after her appearance is to make the first flight for mating, at this moment a drone fertilizes her, after which she is ready for laying eggs of labor bees.

Mating and hatching

The uterus that emerged from the egg is ready for mating on the 7th day of life. The first flights are made for mating, during which it is fertilized by drones. If during the month of flights she fails to mate - she goes into the category of understaffes.

Important! All uterus are divided into two types - fetal and parasites. Fetal uteri lay the eggs of working bees, the dies are unfertilized, from which drones later appear. For the life of the swarm, both types of eggs are important. But first, the cells are filled under the working bees, and only then the queen lays drone eggs.

With a sufficient amount of feed and good conditions, one queen can lay from 1.5 to 2 thousand eggs per day, the weight of the oviposition will be equal to the weight of the uterus. For the whole season, a good queen can produce about 150 thousand eggs. During the laying period, she carefully examines each cell and if there are any flaws in it, for example, irregularities or contamination, she will not lay an egg, but will go to the next section.

Features of the replacement of the queen bee

As a rule, the queen is changed every 2-3 years (the life of one individual is 5 years). The main reason for the replacement may be poor-quality seeding (few testicles in the cells) or aging. If the hives are multihull - they change the queen bee once a year, since only young and strong individuals can lay the maximum number of eggs per day.

Changing a bee is a difficult matter, as someone else’s family may simply not accept. If we are talking about replanting another queen, then the beekeeper himself needs to create special conditions for the swarm or choose the right moment for this. For example, remove the old one and leave the swarm for some time without the queen (but no more than a few hours, otherwise he will start growing fistulous uterus). After that, you can plant a young queen from another family.