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Supersedure may be forced by a beekeeper, for example by clipping off one of the queen's middle or posterior legs. This makes her unable to properly place her eggs at the bottom of the brood cell; the workers detect this and then rear replacement queens. When a new queen becomes available, the workers kill the reigning queen by "balling" her, clustering tightly around her. Death through balling is accomplished by surrounding the queen and raising her body temperature, causing her to overheat and die. Balling is often a problem for beekeepers attempting to introduce a replacement queen.
Queen cells start out as queen cups, which are larger than the cells of normal brood comb and are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. Worker bees will only further build up the queen cup once the queen has laid an egg in a queen cup. In general, the old queen starts laying eggs into queen cups when conditions are right for swarming or supersedure. Swarm cells hang from the bottom of a frame while supersedure queens or emergency queens are generally raised in cells built out from the face of a frame. Beekeepers can also utilize alternative methods of queen rearing. Examples are the Jenter kit, walk-away split, Cloake board, and artificial insemination. If a queen suddenly dies, the workers will attempt to create an "emergency queen" by selecting several brood cells where a larva has just emerged which are then flooded with royal jelly. The worker bees then build larger queen cells over the normal-sized worker cells which protrude vertically from the face of the brood comb. Emergency queens are usually smaller and less prolific than normal queens. A special, rare case of reproduction is thelytoky: the reproduction of female workers or queens by laying worker bees by parthenogenesis. Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency. [11] Supersedure [ edit ] Capped swarm queen cells
Sometimes tiny convex disks marked with identification numbers ( Opalithplättchen) are used when a beekeeper has many queens born in the same year - a method that can also be used to keep multiple bees in the same hive under observation for research purposes. [15] Queen rearing [ edit ] The surviving virgin queen will fly out on a sunny, warm day to a drone congregation area where she will mate with 12–15 drones. If the weather holds, she may return to the drone congregation area for several days until she is fully mated. Mating occurs in flight. The young queen stores up to 6 million sperm from multiple drones in her spermatheca. She will selectively release sperm for the remaining 2–7 years of her life. [8] Unlike the worker bees, the queen's stinger is not barbed and she is able to sting repeatedly without dying.
The term "queen bee" can be more generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species other than honey bees. However, as in the Brazilian stingless bee ( Schwarziana quadripunctata), a single nest may have multiple queens or even dwarf queens, ready to replace a dominant queen in case of a sudden death. [2] Development [ edit ] Older queen larvae in queen cell lying on top of wax comb A queen cup Queen larvae floating on royal jelly in opened queen cups laid on top of wax combAs the young queen larva pupates with her head down, the workers cap the queen cell with beeswax. When ready to emerge, the virgin queen will chew a circular cut around the cap of her cell. Often the cap swings open when most of the cut is made, so as to appear like a hinged lid. a b Waring, Adrian; Waring, Claire (26 March 2010). Get Started in Beekeeping: A practical, illustrated guide to running hives of all sizes in any location. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781444129304 . Retrieved 1 March 2018– via Google Books.
Schneider, S.S.; Painter-Kurt, S.; Degrandi-Hoffman, G. (June 2001). "The role of the vibration signal during queen competition in colonies of the honeybee, Apis mellifera". Animal Behaviour. 61 (6): 1173–1180. doi: 10.1006/anbe.2000.1689. S2CID 26650968.Root, A.I.; Root, E.R. (1980). The ABC and Xyz of Bee Culture. Medina, Ohio: A.I. Root. OCLC 6586488. Queen rearing is the process by which beekeepers raise queen bees from young fertilized worker bee larvae. The most commonly used method is known as the Doolittle method. [16] In the Doolittle method, the beekeeper grafts larvae, which are 24 hours or less of age, into a bar of queen cell cups. The queen cell cups are placed inside of a cell-building colony. [17] A cell-building colony is a strong, well-fed, queenless colony that feeds the larva royal jelly and develops the larvae into queen bees. [18]
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