Question

Why do female worker bee not participate in reproduction inspite of being produced by fertilised egg? And how are queen bee produced?

Answer 1

Dear student,

A worker bee is any female (eusocial) bee that lacks the full reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee under most circumstances, this is correlated to an increase in certain non-reproductive activities relative to a queen, as well. worker bees are infertile due to enforced altruistic kin selection and thus never reproduce. Workers are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee but in most species will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three days of its larval form.

How queen bee developed:

When conditions are favorable for swarming, the queen will start laying eggs in queen cups. A virgin queen will develop from a fertilized egg. The young queen larva develops differently because it is more heavily fed royal jelly a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers. If not for being heavily fed royal jelly, the queen larva would develop into a regular worker bee. All bee larvae are fed some royal jelly for the first few days after hatching but only queen larvae are fed the jelly exclusively. As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees.

I hope you understand.