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Paragraph on “What is a Queen Bee?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

What is a Queen Bee?

You must have heard of the expression ‘queen bee’ describing someone who does lots of work in a community and enjoys being the centre of attention. This aptly describes the role of the queen bee in a hive of honey bees. Honey bees, like ants, are social insects, and long ago man found that they were quite happy to live as a colony in a wooden structure called a hive. This made collecting honey so much easier!

A hive of bees is made up of the queen bee, some drones and thousands of female workers. The queen’s job is to lay eggs, and apart from her mating flight, she spends all her life in the hive and does nothing else. At certain times of the year 15oo eggs a day are laid. The worker bees are all female and they look after the queen, bringing her food and making special six-sided cells of wax where she lays her eggs and where food, in the form of honey and pollen, is stored for the winter. If the hive gets too hot in summer, the workers keep it cool by fanning their wings and they are constantly on guard against any intruders. In fact, workers born at this time do so much work, they only live for four or five weeks during the summer.

The queen bee is the only bee in the hive to lay eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae which are fed on royal jelly. Royal jelly is a special brood-food made by the worker bees. Each larva is fed on royal jelly for three days, then it is replaced by pollen and honey. These larvae will turn into worker bees. If a new queen is required for the following year, one of the larvae will be selected by the workers and fed exclusively on royal jelly.

Drones are the lazy, male bees who take no part in the work of the hive. They are needed for one purpose only — to mate with the queen. When a new queen emerges from her cell, she sets out on her mating flight and the drones follow her. The drone who does succeed in mating the new queen, dies immediately afterwards. The other drones are turned out of the hive at the end of the summer to die in the cold. Stored food is precious, and drones eat too much and do nothing in return. Another set of drones will hatch in the following spring.

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