Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens

0:00 A honeybee hive might seem like a peaceful utopia,

0:03 but in reality, it’s buzzing with internal conflict between warring factions.

0:08 And the biggest conflict is between the queen and the worker bees.

0:12 Hi, I’m Cameron, and this is MinuteEarth.

0:15 There are three types of bees in a hive: the queen,

0:17 who lays all the eggs, her daughters– the worker bees– and her sons– the drones.

0:22 From the queen’s perspective, both workers and drones are valuable.

0:25 She needs daughters to run the hive,

0:27 find food, nurse the larvae, and even feed her.

0:30 But she also needs sons to pass along her genes by mating with other queens.

0:35 So it makes sense for a queen bee to lay

0:37 as many eggs of both types– workers and drones– as she can.

0:41 But the worker bees are the ones actually caring for those eggs,

0:44 and their priorities are way different;

0:46 they’d benefit from more sisters to share the workload.

0:49 What’s more, because of the weird way

0:51 honeybee genetics works, which, by the way,

0:52 we made a whole other video about already,

0:55 workers share about 75% of their genes with each other,

0:58 only 50% with the queen, and a mere 25% with the drones; in other words,

1:03 it's genetically beneficial for workers to favor

1:06 their sisters over their much more distantly-related brothers.

1:09 So they preferentially feed female larvae,

1:11 leaving male larvae to beg for scraps–

1:14 which aren’t always enough to keep them alive.

1:17 Sometimes, workers will even kill drone larvae

1:18 to free up food and care for more workers.

1:21 So even though the queen is in charge of producing offspring,

1:25 the workers ultimately control the sex ratio of the hive,

1:28 and they make sure that it’s producing mostly females; as a result,

1:32 honeybee workers can outnumber drones by a un-bee-lieveable ten to one.

1:36 In other communal insects– like termites– where workers,

1:39 soldiers and royalty can be male or female,

1:42 workers don’t give any preferential treatment;

1:44 these species’ sex ratios end up much more balanced.

1:47 But honeybees’ worker-queen conflict goes

1:49 much deeper than just spoiling sisters.

1:52 Workers are also constantly keeping tabs on the queen’s health,

1:55 and as soon as her egg-laying slows down,

1:57 they start feeding one of their baby sisters a special formula that triggers

2:01 her ovaries to start developing– this makes her a potential new queen.

2:05 In order to keep her crown, the old queen has to constantly find

2:09 and kill these queens-to-be before they grow up.

2:11 And if one does, two things can happen.

2:14 The workers might gang up on the old queen

2:16 and assassinate her –Julius Caesar style– or, the hive might fragment,

2:19 with a ton of workers swearing fealty to their new

2:22 sister-queen and flying off to start a new hive with her.

2:25 In either case, some, if not all,

2:27 workers are supplanting their own mother with a sister they’re more

2:31 closely-related to, so that she can pass on their shared genes.

2:35 But while things will be great for the new queen for a while,

2:39 her daughters might eventually decide to get rid of her too.

2:41 So while it might seem awesome to be the Queen Bee,

2:47 the reality can really sting.

2:50 Bees are awesome, but like many other important pollinators,

2:53 they are rapidly disappearing.

2:55 The good news is we can actually help: that’s why we joined Planet Wild.

2:59 Every month, we, as a community, fund a mission to restore our planet.

3:03 We love that they tackle problems with very specific

3:05 goals and show the results on their Youtube channel.

3:08 Like, how they helped save the habitat of Monarch butterflies in Mexico.

3:12 If you want to make a difference in nature,

3:14 consider joining us over at Planet Wild.

3:16 You can give whatever amount you like and the first 100 people to sign

3:19 up using our code MinuteEarth1 will get their first month paid for by us.

3:23 Just scan this QR code or click the link in the description.

3:26 And there's no catch here– you can cancel anytime.

3:29 If you want to see Planet Wild in action,

3:34 check out their butterfly mission here.