Three Queen Bees

Sometimes the hive I live in buzzes in sweet-honeyed competition, as there are three queen bees. A normal hive would only have one queen bee. Our hive does not pretend to be remotely normal.

In a normal hive, the largest bee is the queen. The queen bee here, is middle sized, not too large, not too small. She is over a half century old, which is definitely not normal, as the life expectancy of even the healthiest queen bee is roughly four years.

The queen bee certainly hasn't laid the usual over a million eggs. Her court does not consist of the usual twelve worker girl bees, but of only two hand-maidens, who also claim to be queen bees. The battle for who gets to sit in the throne, and decide everything for the hive, is often a bee swarm of competing ideas.

Probably the only thing that is normal about this hive, is that the sole drone is so lazy that he will not feed himself. Proof positive of his natural inclination towards idleness occurs everyday, when he sits and stares at the television, waiting for someone to turn it on for him. He gets mad at all the queens, if they should not notice he's waiting. All three of the queens that vie to claim the throne, have to feed him or he feels most unloved. By all accounts, he shouldn't be around, having long lived past his own life expectancy of ninety days.

Like most male drones, it's really hard to figure out if he's useful to the hive or not. However, the queen bees decided that even though he's eating them out of house and home -- he still is the only one of them who knows how to fix the air conditioning or heater. So, we think we'll keep him around.

Unlike other hives, the ones you find outdoors, the three queen bees in this hive, will not be fighting to the death until only one of us remains -- no matter how much buzzing you might hear, when one of us at least daily, tries to claim:

"I am the Queen Bee and we're are doing everything my way!"

Well, there you have it -- I say am the only Queen bee in this matriachal hive since I own the hive, despite the fact that my daughter and granddaughter, often try to claim that they the sole possessor of the crown. Our drone says we're not queen bees, but we think that's because we won't acknowledge him as a king and bow to him.

In the real honeybee world, sometimes there is a lot of conflicting or confusing information when it comes to the answer to the question on whether or not, bees are just clones of each other. The genealogy of bees is as complicated as any Cajun family tree.

You'll read that in a real natural bee hive, the male's (the drones) develop from unfertilized eggs. However, they are not genetically identical to each other. They are also not genetically identical to the female queen either.

Then, you'll read, about how the drones of the hive (the unfertilized eggs) laid by a queen bee only have about half of her genes, but in different combinations (because she mates with many). It's sort of like have a lot of step-brothers when you are a drone. Yet, all sperm produced by those drones are identical clones of the drone.

With the female worker bees, they have two copies of each chromosome from each parent (the queen bee and the male who fertilized her). So technically, they are only three-quarters related to thier siblings, yet are closer in relationship to their sisters, than their own off-spring who only have half their genes.

In thinking about that puzzle, I immediately think about my own brother, beings I'm the queen bee and the daughter of a queen bee. If bees were just clones of each other -- I would have been in a lot of trouble when we were little busy bees.

Wouldn't his cloned brothers have been swarming in chase after me, whenever I did mean things, like pushing him off the top of a rabbit hutch, or trading him my two nickels for his one quarter?

Instead of one little boy chasing me, things could have been very different. Real bees do make you think.

In nature, I know that in the real bee world, this all has to do with a kind of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis. This is when a new member of the hive develops from an unfertilized egg. Normally, this can happen with offspring and parents combined to form a clone, but there are exceptions, and the male drones of bee hives are one of them. Their genes do not recombine in a clone.

In my bee hive, I became the self appointed queen the day I took charge of my life and my hive, as part of a discovery process, in figuring out real fast that if I wasn't in charge -- the hive was going to starve.

Now, I will admit that more than one prince charming tried to feed me too much royal jelly, but sooner or later, I found myself stuck with an ugly toad and all his warts, intent on eating my soul while still alive. I'm quite happy with a lazy drone who clearly enjoys being waited on by a house full of females, even if our constant buzzing annoys him.

In nature's hives, being appointed the queen bee, the young female worker bees secrete royal jelly from their heads (hypopharyngeal glands) and feed it to the chosen princess bee for the first four days and she grows so fast, she's declared the "queen."

Her rapid growth spurs the development of the mature ovaries needed to lay eggs. Here's where factual science, and myth collide -- all bee larvae are fed royal jelly, not just the chosen queen or virgin queens. It's the timing of when the intended queen is fed the royal jelly. In addition because her cell is larger, it's stocked with much more royal jelly. The amount she is fed, is what distinguishes her growth from the others. However, adult bees never eat any royal jelly.

It surprises a lot of people when you tell them that bees have their own language and forms of communication. While they communicate certain things (like where to find the nectar) through bee dance movements, the adult queen bees make what is often been described as a "bee quacking" sound, called piping.

Musically, piping sounds are known to be G sharps or A naturals, in a two second note, followed by several quarter-second notes.

Not to be outdone, the virgin queens in their queen cells make their own communications in terms of piping -- only theirs is more of a "tooting" sound. Humans can actually hear both sounds clearly and loudly outside of hives at times.

I have no intention of abdicating my throne anytime soon, despite the fact that I am techically an old queen bee. I recognize that as a queen bee, I have always been in danger of being replaced by a new queen bee, or so my drone has threatened. His is an idle threat, by an idle even older man. He and I both know, he couldn't catch a younger queen bee even on his best day (and if he did, he'd be a dead drone, if she didn't kill him, I would). Such is life when you both know your days are numbered.

In the event that I am superseded by the next in line for the throne, either because of advanced old age, or failing health, or even death -- I'm glad I am a human queen bee. I don't think I'd relish the honeybee hive method of dethronement.

With honeybees, the old queen been is replaced by the new queen bee in a process called "supersedure" when her egg laying days are nearing an end. It occurs naturally, when the female worker bees figure out this is happening, and start feeding and selecting her possible replacement. At the right time, they simply murder the queen by gathering tightly all around her, until she dies of suffocation and overheating.

Worse than that, some beekeepers cause the hive members to become murderers, when they desire to introduce a new queen bee. They'll start the murderous process by cutting off one of the queen honeybee's middle or back legs, so her egg laying becomes impossible (as she can't get the eggs properly placed in the cells). Then, the hive murders the queen for the bee keeper. Either way, the queen's a goner.