Female worker bees clean the hive and feed the larva for the first ten days of their lives. After this, they begin building comb cells to store honey and larvae going through the pupa state. On days 16 through 20, the hive worker receives nectar and pollen from older workers and stores it. After the 20th day, a worker leaves the hive and spends the remainder of its short life as a forager. The population of a healthy hive in mid-summer I have deduced can be over 40,000 bees.” While sunning on the rocky shore below my villa, I expounded once again on my research: “Both workers and queens are fed ‘royal jelly’ during the first three days of the larval stage. Royal jelly is a bee secretion that aids in the development of immature or young bees. Then those chosen to be workers are switched to a diet of pollen and nectar or diluted honey, while those intended for queens will continue to receive royal jelly. The selected ‘Princess’ the larva develop to the pupa stage more quickly, while being also larger and fully developed sexually. This specialized diet in the early feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay more eggs for the hive. Queens live for up to three years, while workers have an average life of only three months” During our stroll and between purchases at the market, I enlightened Watson some more about my research on the Queen Bee. “Queens are not produced in the typical horizontal brood cells of the honeycomb. The typical queen cell is specially constructed to be much larger, and is vertical. Because the hive survives and exists only when the Queen Bee thrives, should the workers sense that the old queen is weakening, they will produce emergency cells known as supersedure cells. These cells are made from a already exiting cell with an egg or very young larva. These enlarged cells protrude from the comb. Just prior to emerging from their cells, young queens can often be heard ‘piping.’ I do not yet know the purpose of this sound. Drone bees are the male bees of the colony. They do not have stingers and they do not forage for nectar or pollen. The primary purpose of a drone bee is to fertilize a new queen. Multiple drones will mate with any given queen in flight, and each drone will die immediately after mating.” Watson asked about the calming effect of smoke on bees. “Bees become remarkably non aggressive when a hive detects smoke. I believe this is a natural defense mechanism as wild colonies generally live in hollow trees. When smoke is detected it is presumed that they must evacuate the hive from a forest fire, carrying as much food reserve as they can. Because a forest fire can consume the entire hive, individual defense from live predators is relatively unimportant; saving as much overall as possible is the most important consideration.” Over tea and crumpets, buttered and honeyed with my own stock, I also informed Watson: “There are three general triggers when the colony determines that a new queen is needed. “First, because the hive is filled with honey, leaving little room for new eggs. This will trigger a swarm where the old queen will take about half the worker bees to found a new colony, leaving a newly created queen with the other half of worker bees to continue the old colony. Second, when current queen becomes old and worn out, no longer able to produce sufficient eggs to insure survival of the hive. This situation is called supersedure. The old queen is generally killed and is replaced by a created young queen. The third instance, when the old queen dies suddenly. This is an emergency supersedure. The worker bees will find several eggs or larvae in the right age-range and attempt to develop them into queens. Emergency supersedure can generally be recognized because the queen cell is built out from a regular cell of the comb. The workers develop the larvae into queens by continuing to feed them royal jelly. This triggers an extended development from a selected pupa as I told you. “When the virgin queen emerges, she seeks out other queen cells and sting the infant queens within to insure her reign over the hive. Should two queens emerge simultaneously, they will fight to the death. “After several days of making her acquaintance with her environment in the hive, the young queen flies to a drone swarming site, usually near a clearing and generally about 30 feet above the ground. Drones detect the presence of a queen and mate with her in midair. A queen will mate multiple times and may leave to mate several days in a row, weather permitting, until her spermatheca is full. This mating must last her, her entire reign as queen. It is a death sentence when she fails her fundamental duty.” “Many in our society think that once we can no longer fulfill our fundamental duties, our being sent off to retirement is a prolonged, humane, but no less definite death sentence. I myself see it not as such, but as a freedom to choose our own time consuming interesting mental development. The only drawback is the lessening of our physical robustness. The mind is willing but the flesh weak. ”