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Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens
Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens
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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, 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
0:37
lay 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; they’d benefit from more sisters to share the workload.
0:49
What’s more, because of the weird way honeybee genetics works, which, by the way,
0:52
we made a whole other video about already, 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, it's genetically
1:04
beneficial for workers to favor their sisters over their much more distantly-related brothers.
1:09
So they preferentially feed female larvae, leaving male larvae to
1:13
beg for scraps – which aren’t always enough to keep them alive. Sometimes,
1:17
workers will even kill drone larvae to free up food and care for more workers.
1:21
So even though the queen is in charge of producing offspring, the workers ultimately
1:26
control the sex ratio of the hive, and they make sure that it’s producing mostly females;
1:31
as a result, 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, 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 much deeper than just spoiling sisters.
1:52
Workers are also constantly keeping tabs on the queen’s health, and as soon as her egg-laying
1:57
slows down, they start feeding one of their baby sisters a special formula that
2:01
triggers 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 and assassinate her –Julius Caesar style–
2:18
or, the hive might fragment, with a ton of workers swearing fealty to
2:22
their new sister-queen and flying off to start a new hive with her.
2:25
In either case, some, if not all, workers are supplanting their own mother with a
2:30
sister they’re more 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, the reality can really sting.
2:50
Bees are awesome, but like many other important pollinators, 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. We love that
3:04
they tackle problems with very specific goals and show the results on their Youtube channel.
3:08
Like, how they helped save the habitat of Monarch butterflies in Mexico. If
3:12
you want to make a difference in nature, consider joining us over at Planet Wild.
3:16
You can give whatever amount you like and the first 100 people to
3:19
sign 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. And
3:26
there's no catch here – you can cancel anytime.
3:29
If you want to see Planet Wild in action, check out their butterfly mission here.
