04/14/2024
What is that, you ask. That, is a spermatheca, on the tip of my finger, taken from a dead queen bee. That little pearl stores the genetic material that she will use to produce millions of baby bees over the next couple of years. I will have to be careful on descriptions here, and in some cases slightly inaccurate, to avoid the censorship from the social media monitors.
When a queen bee emerges, her first seven days are spent gaining strength and maturing before taking her mating flights. On her mating flights she will mate with approximately 15 to 20 drones (male bees). The "C-men" that she collects is stored in the spermatheca. She can live up to 4 to 5 years, and will use this genetic material for fertilizing several million eggs during that time frame.
As her supply of male genetic material diminishes over time, she starts to lay fewer eggs and produce less pheromones. When this change has diminished sufficiently, the bees of the colony will replace her with a process called supersedure. In other words, they will create a new queen. And the new virgin queen will kill the old queen, and the process starts over.
The queen bee is capable of deciding whether to make a male or female bee. (No ultrasound needed). As the egg passes through her oviduct it will rub against the spermatheca duct which is coated with male reproductive material and the egg is fertilized. This will become a female worker bee. If she withdraws the spermatheca duct as the egg passes through, the egg will not be fertilized and it will become a male bee, or drone.
During the peak of summer there may be as many as 70,000 to 80,000 bees in a large hive. Of those 70,000 to 80,000, generally less than 1,000 are drones.
