Tonight, my friend Lynn kindly allowed me to accompany her to an informational meeting of the Delaware Beekeepers' Association. While explaining the structure of the hive, the lecturer pointed out the queen cells. Someone in the audience asked about the plural--can there be more than one queen in a hive? (Okay, it was me.)
The answer is no. Multiple queens are developed, but the first one to hatch goes around and stings all the others to death. If two come out exactly at the same time, they fight to the death.
By the way, queen bee larvae are exactly like that of worker and drone bees--the one thing that transforms them is that they are fed more royal jelly.
It's winter, but there's always something interesting to learn about nature!
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