The Queen bee is the most important bee in the colony, and she really does rule with ‘the fragrance of her presence’. Her heady pheromones persuade her daughters to feed and groom her, so you would think she had it made. But she does not get to make the decisions. The decisions are made by her ‘children’ and ‘teenagers’, so perhaps there are a few correlations between bees and humans after all! It is her older daughters who get to decide when they want the family to move house. They even decide when the Queen is past her best and when the season of summer has gone and it is time to get rid of the men about the house too. But as with humans, a good natured mother often produces good natured offspring, and a grumpy Queen bee results in a hive of grumpy bees, which result in more stings for me – Oh dear! Thankfully my Queen Bees have been very good natured for many years.
As with humans, a good natured mother often produces good natured offspring
As it is with human mothers, it is so much work and no play. A queen spends her life laying egg after egg 2,000 a day in the height of summer! And she keeps working away for three years with only a bit of time off in the winter when it is too cold to risk making baby bees. In the summer, her daughters have to make hay or honey while the sun shines as their days are numbered after 6 weeks, but I often think that the life of a foraging worker bee, nestling into the heart one flower after another, and tasting all those different nectars is rather a privileged one.
The poor old Queen stays in the hive in the dark all the time, and never sees the sun!
So give your Queen Bee a big thank you today for all she does, as it is Mother’s Day.