What a honey bee queen is
The queen is the one fully fertile female in a typical honey bee colony. Her main contributions are laying the eggs that replace the colony’s workers and giving off chemical signals (pheromones) that help the colony function as a unit. A healthy colony normally has a single queen, surrounded by tens of thousands of workers and, in the warm season, some hundreds of drones; see the bee hive hierarchy for how the roles fit together.
Despite the name, she does not give orders. Colony decisions emerge from the collective behavior of the workers. You can read more in the job of the queen bee in the colony.
How a queen is made
Queens and workers both come from fertilized eggs, so they start out genetically similar. What changes the outcome is how the larva is raised. Workers build a larger, peanut-shaped queen cell and feed the larva royal jelly throughout its development. That feeding pattern leads to a bigger body, fully developed ovaries and a longer life. The full process is described in how a queen bee is born.
Development from egg to emerged adult takes about 16 days, which is shorter than the roughly 21 days for a worker.
What she looks like
A queen is usually longer than a worker, mainly because of her extended abdomen, which often reaches past the tips of her folded wings. Her wings look shorter in proportion to her body. She often moves more smoothly and is usually surrounded by a few workers facing her. Fuller detail is in spotting a queen, and the body parts themselves are covered in queen bee anatomy.
Queen versus worker
Workers are also female, but they are typically sterile under normal conditions and do the colony’s labor. For a direct comparison, see queen bee vs worker bee.
Mating and egg laying
A young queen leaves the hive on one or more mating flights and mates in the air with a number of drones. She stores the sperm in an organ called the spermatheca and can use it for the rest of her laying life. Controlled alternatives are covered in natural mating and instrumental insemination. After mating she normally does not leave the hive except with a swarm.
During the busy season a good queen can lay well over a thousand eggs a day, with some sources citing figures up to about 2,000 at peak. She can choose whether to fertilize each egg: fertilized eggs become workers or queens, and unfertilized eggs become drones.
Lifespan and replacement
Queens can live for several years, though many beekeepers requeen or see natural replacement after a year or two or three because egg laying and pheromone output can decline with age. Workers, by comparison, live for weeks in summer. The stages are laid out in the queen bee life cycle.
Colonies replace queens in three common situations: swarming, supersedure (planned replacement of a failing queen) and emergency replacement after she is lost.
What happens if the queen dies
If a colony loses its queen suddenly and still has very young eggs or larvae, workers can raise an emergency queen from them. Signs of queenlessness can include a lack of fresh eggs and young brood, a louder or more agitated colony, and, later, queen cells. If no suitable young larvae remain, some workers may begin laying unfertilized eggs, which produce only drones. Local beekeeping associations or experienced mentors can help you decide whether to wait for a new queen, combine the colony or introduce a purchased queen.
How rare is it to see the queen?
Many beekeepers go through whole inspections without spotting her, especially in strong colonies. That is common and not a problem by itself. Seeing fresh eggs standing up at the bottom of cells, with a solid pattern of brood, is a reliable sign that she was there within the last few days.