Queen bees are truly worthy of their royal status. Shortly after birth, they quickly establish themselves as the rulers of the hive by mating with as many as fifteen different drones. Remarkably, the queen will store up to 6 million sperm inside her body, releasing them, when required, over the course of her lifetime. At her peak, she will lay 2000 eggs every day. All the while, select worker bees, known as “attendants,” will look after her every need. They supply food, look after her grooming and dispose of her waste.
The life cycle of a queen bee is limited to five years. And she must be replaced with a new queen immediately after she dies. Although her thorax is longer than other bees, it can be difficult to identify her from the thousands of colony inhabitants. An internationally recognized colour coding system exists to help beekeepers quickly locate queen bees. A drop of coloured paint, added to the sovereign’s back, signifies her age. The colours denote the last number of the year she was born:
COLOUR FOR YEAR ENDING
White 1 or 6
Yellow 2 or 7
Red 3 or 8
Green 4 or 9
Blue 5 or 0
Beekeepers often use model car paint for the marking; it is highly visible and durable. Typically, they will apply the identification to the queen before she joins the colony. The clever mnemonic - “Will You Raise Good Bees?”- is used to remember the colour order.