Most bees are solitary, but honeybees are very social and live within a hive as a colony as a family with a very strong hierarchy. Three castes make up a hive: Queen, Worker, and Drone. The Queen bee is the heart and soul of the hive. She is the largest bee in the hive, and she reigns over female worker bees and male drones. Worker bees are infertile females and often make up 98% of the hive’s population. The balance of the hive population is made up of drones. A drone’s main role in the hive is to fertilize the Queen.
A Queen is the largest bee in the hive and is generally 2.5 times larger than the other members of the colony. She can live for up to five years, but it will be the colony (or a strategic beekeeper) that decides if she will live or die. Her primary job is to lay eggs in the deeper brood boxes. Queens produce chemical scents that unify and direct the colony. She will mate on one singular mating flight in her life and will go on to lay 1,500-2,000 eggs per day. It is possible that a queen could lay as many as 3 million eggs in her lifetime.
If a Queen is not laying eggs the colony will begin to prepare for a replacement. In the end, “to be or not to bee” is strictly for the colony to decide.