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 Queens are raised in specially constructed queen cells. The fully constructed queen cells have a peanut-like shape and texture.

As 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. If the prime swarm has a virgin queen and an old queen, the old queen will usually be allowed to live. The old queen continues laying. Within a couple of weeks she will die a natural death and the former virgin, now mated, will take her place.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. Ribeiro, Márcia De F.; Alves, Denise De A. (2001). "Size Variation in Schwarziana quadripunctata Queens (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini)" (PDF). Revista de Etologia. 3 (1): 59–65. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-08 . Retrieved 2015-11-05.

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] 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 ]

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During the warm parts of the year, female "worker" bees leave the hive every day to collect nectar and pollen. While male bees serve no architectural or pollinating purpose, their primary function (if they are healthy enough) is to mate with a queen bee. If they are successful, they fall to the ground and die after copulation. Any fertilized egg has the potential to become a queen. Diet in the larval stage determines whether the bee will develop into a queen or a worker. Queens are fed only royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers. Worker larvae are fed bee bread which is a mixture of nectar and pollen. All bee larvae are fed some royal jelly for the first few days after hatching but only queen larvae are fed the jelly exclusively. As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees. [3] Repasky, Stephen (2016-04-22). "What's Happening In The Hive". Bee Culture - The Magazine of American Beekeeping . Retrieved 2020-06-27. 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] Beekeepers can also utilize alternative methods of queen rearing. Examples are the Jenter kit, walk-away split, Cloake board, and artificial insemination.