However, if "bees" refers to all species within the superfamily Apoidea, then in fact, most bees do not have a queen bee.
The superfamily Apoidea is a large group, with approximately 20,000 species worldwide, with populations possibly exceeding 20 trillion individuals. The vast majority of these species are not even social, and they can thrive without a queen or a colony.
These queenless bees, females, nest alone in a simple burrow—either in plant stems or underground tunnels.
They provision each egg with a pollen ball, mixed with nectar they collect from flowers, and then allow the egg to hatch and develop on its own, without any assistance needed throughout the process.
Sharadpunita
The appearance of these bees is often stunning, and they serve as vital pollinators for many crops and plants, although many may not realize they're bees at all.
An intriguing question arises: since many bees can thrive without a queen, how exactly did queens evolve?
Queens, Workers, and Drones
Apart from honeybees, there are two other types of bees with queens: the bumblebees found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and the stingless bees mainly found in tropical regions.
While honeybee colonies can number over 50,000 individuals, carnivorous bumblebee colonies typically contain only a few hundred, and stingless bee colonies are usually even smaller, although some can rival the largest honeybee hives in size.
In addition to the egg-laying queen, these bee societies also feature two other roles: workers and drones.
Many people may not fully grasp how these roles are divided within a bee colony, which is actually quite fascinating.
The queen unquestionably lays eggs—every bee in the colony comes from her—but she also plays a role in regulating the ratio of workers to drones.
The bees we typically see are essentially worker bees. All worker bees, like the queen, are female—developed from fertilized eggs laid by the queen. Every task within the hive, from tending to the colony to foraging for food to defending the nest, is carried out by the worker bees.
Though worker bees rarely lay eggs, numerous studies have found instances of egg-laying among them. However, eggs laid by worker bees are promptly consumed by other workers, a behavior believed to ensure the proper ratio of workers to drones within the colony.
Strict control over the ratio of worker bees to drones is necessary because drones, aside from eating, contribute nothing to the hive—not even feeding themselves, as worker bees handle that duty. They're essentially consumers of resources.
Drones develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, lacking even a stinger, but they are larger in size. Their sole purpose is to propagate the genes of the colony.
Image: The one marked here is the queen bee, which doesn't differ much from ordinary worker bees.
The Isolated "Queen"
You might imagine a queen or a monarch overseeing everything, commanding all, but in a bee society, such a thing doesn't exist. The queen bee doesn't lead her subjects like human monarchs do; she doesn't rule over her worker bees.
Instead, what happens inside the beehive is quite secluded for her. She's more like a machine, responsible only for laying eggs and determining what type of eggs to lay based on the hive's needs, whether fertilized or unfertilized, thus preliminarily adjusting the ratio of workers to drones.
However, this adjustment is just preliminary. The final decision lies with the worker bees, who selectively feed or kill drones based on the hive's resource situation.
On the other hand, once the queen's egg-laying ability declines, the worker bees will kill her. Then, they'll select a fertilized egg to become the next queen. All it takes is feeding the chosen larva royal jelly once it hatches.
Many people may know that a queen bee mates only once in her lifetime—so as time goes on, her egg-laying ability declines. Perhaps many wonder why this is.
The reason is quite simple, actually. The risk of mating is very high for the queen bee, so there's no reason for the colony to let her mate multiple times.
Image: The bees with dots on their backs are the potential queens, while worker bees encourage them to mate.
During queen bee mating, there is a process called drone congregation, where a potential queen flies ahead while thousands of drones from different hives chase after her. This is known as the mating flight.
The mating flight is a spectacular collective display in the bee world. Predators lurk around, trying to prey on them. (Here's an interesting fact about bee mating flights: they start in the same place every year, but nobody knows how bees manage this.)
Therefore, a colony cannot allow the same queen to mate twice. Selecting multiple potential queens and finding a new queen before the old one's productivity declines to zero would be a better choice.
Image: This is an ant nest, can you imagine it? It's from leaf-cutter ants in Brazil.
So why exactly do we need queens?
Actually, it's not just bees; other animals also live in societies with clear division of labor—they also have clear roles in reproduction and maintaining the group members, such as ants, termites, and even naked mole rats, and they've all evolved "queens."
In nature, if organisms have only one purpose, it's definitely to pass on their genes.
One way organisms pass on genes is by having offspring themselves, which is quite common, but another way is by helping close relatives rather than reproducing alone.
Although passing on genes without reproducing yourself may sound impractical, many animals have been observed doing so, and even altruistic behaviors in organisms are likely evolved this way, simply because your close relatives share similar genes with you.
Those animals in highly specialized communities with clear division of labor have obviously taken helping close relatives in reproduction to the extreme.
You might also wonder why they would evolve into the extreme of having "queens."
The answers I found here are the complex nest structures and clear division of labor, which are the main factors driving the evolution of "queens."
The ancestors of these animals either evolved to build more complex nests to sustain populations or to promote division of labor, or possibly both simultaneously, ultimately leading to the "queen" survival strategy.
