See her there on the bottom? The bee with the long abdomen and stubby wings?
She was reared and hatched in this hive. The old queen and half the bees in the colony swarmed and
this new, lovely has taken her place on the throne.
Her enlarged abdomen is the clear sign that she is mated and should start laying eggs soon.
Shown here are a few drones (fat, big-eyed fellas) standing near Her Ladyship.
Drones need these giant peepers to spot a queen on her mating flight. When a drone
mates on a flight, it is, sadly, his last flight.
The queen will mate with 15 or so drones in one or more mating flight attempts until she has a sufficient amount of sperm stored to last the rest of her life. After she is successfully mated, if she is well fed, she will lay 1500-2000 eggs per day from early spring through mid autumn in these parts. She will do this every year throughout her life. A healthy queen's life expectancy is thought to be 4-5 years these days.
