For example can a Queen Bee or Termite be born to a bee or termite? Or do the parents have to be Queen and King? Or can only Queens lay eggs??
In: Biology
Only the queens can lay eggs, but they lay two different kinds of eggs:
Eggs that are not fertilized become male Drone bees.
Eggs that are fertilized (with sperm that the queen received from Drones before she started her colony and uses her entire life) become female bees. There are two different kinds of female bees:
Ordinary females become worker bees.
Females that are raised in specially made larger cells and are fed Royal Jelly become Queens.
There’s only one Queen in a hive so when new Queens are made the old Queen leaves (with about half the hive) and starts a new hive. The new Queens in the old hive fight to the death until only one survives.
When a Queen gets old or if she dies unexpectedly then the worker bees can expand the cells of some existing larva and feed them Royal Jelly and make them into “emergency” Queens.
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