Edit: Thanks for the explanation and all the comments. I had no idea of how it was and also wasn’t expecting it to be like that. Curiously interesting!
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Queen bees lay eggs in the hive.
Eggs that were fertilized by drones (male bees) will become female.
Unfertilized eggs will become drones.
When the eggs hatch, they become larva. Most females just mature normally and become workers.
A few female larva are selected to become queens, so they are fed a special concoction the bees produce called royal jelly. ~~The royal jelly allows the bee to mature differently so it can properly reproduce.~~ When these new queens mature, they then fight until only 1 queen remains.
Edit: the royal jelly isn’t actually what makes a bee a queen. The royal jelly is just a protein substitute because larvae selected to be queens aren’t fed pollen (what bees eat for protein), and that’s what makes them become a queen.
They only produce new queens if the current queen is dead (using previously laid eggs) or when the queen has left to make a new hive.
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