Sometimes we mark the queen with a color representing the year she was born to make her easier to find.
A queen and her “retinue” of adoring nurse bees. Notice how some of the bees are darker than others due to the diverse genetics in the hive.
A queen cell that is open which means the queen has emerged. Notice the fuzzy baby worker bee who was likely just born too.
The Buzz Report:  Let’s Talk About Queen Honey Bees
By Linda Lawless LaStayo - 16 June 2026

As we approach summer, the honey bees are very busy building up their population and there is one vital member of the hive to help them with this. The queen in the hive is responsible for laying all the eggs to make new members of the colony and therefore every bee in the hive is her daughter or son. Queen honey bees live for 3-5 years and look and behave quite differently than the other bees. There is only one queen in each hive.

How is a queen bee made?
When an egg is selected to become a queen, the worker bees create a bigger space for her called a queen cup and the larva is fed a continuous diet of royal jelly rich in protein that allows her to develop differently. When she emerges after 21 days, she must mature and then go off on mating flights to a drone congregation area usually miles away. The queen mates with up to 20 drones only once in her lifetime and from then on, her eggs are fertilized. The hive genetics are diverse due to the number of drones that mate with the queen which keeps them healthier than if the entire hive was of the same genetics. This is why bees in the same hive can look different from each other.

What does the queen do every day?
For her entire life after she returns from her mating flights, the queen’s job is to lay eggs. She can lay up to 2000-3000 per day. Amazingly she can lay fertilized eggs that turn into female worker bees or choose to lay unfertilized eggs that turn into male drones. The only time a queen leaves the hive is if the hive swarms and takes her along. The queen does nothing to raise the baby bees so you really can’t call her the “Mother” of the hive. The nurse bees do this, and they also take care of the queen by feeding and grooming her and cheering her on. When you see the queen in the hive, she is usually surrounded by a group of adoring nurse bees called the queen retinue.

How do the other bees know the queen is healthy and thriving?
Queen bees produce a special pheromone signature that tells the rest of the hive who she is and that she is doing well. If something happens to the queen, the entire hive knows within about 20 minutes. Her chemical signature is unique to her which is why another queen would immediately be destroyed if she were to enter the hive when the current queen is inside and well.

Is the queen bee the “boss” of the hive?
Not really. If the queen is sick, injured, or not doing her job well, her queen pheromones will decrease, and the rest of the hive will know quickly that there is a problem. This also can occur when the queen is getting older. The workers will then cull the old queen and replace her with a new one. So, although she is extremely important and well cared for by the other bees, the queen is not really in charge of how the hive functions and thrives.

How do beekeepers keep their queens healthy?
As beekeepers, one reason we inspect our hives is to assess the health of our queens. We always look for signs that she is inside and thriving. If we do not see her directly, the presence of eggs in the hive means she has been laying at most 3 days ago and we consider that a good sign that things are well. In addition, we look for healthy adult bees, healthy brood, good nutrition, and the absence of signs of pathogens. A beekeeper might consider “re-queening” a hive that is unhealthy, not thriving, or has become aggressive because changing the queen will change the genetics of the entire hive over time. In this way, she is the most important member of the colony!

Linda Lawless LaStayo is a Master Beekeeper and the owner and beekeeper of 3 Queens Apiary. She lives and keeps her bee-Utah-ful honeybees in Liberty.
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