Queen Laying Eggs

The queen honeybee is the sole egg-layer in a healthy bee colony.  The queen can lay several hundred eggs in a day if she is young and vigorous and if empty cells are available.  The procedure below outlines the process the queen goes through to lay an egg.  To see the various stages of honeybee development from an egg to an adult, see Honeybee Metamorphosis.

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	Finding a suitable cell The queen will walk around on the comb, searching for an empty cell that may be a candidate for containing an egg.  She will look for either a worker cell or a drone cell, depending on whether she needs to lay a fertilized or an unfertilized egg.  Fertilized eggs produce worker bees or new queens.  Unfertilized eggs produce drones.
	Inspecting the cell Once the queen locates an empty cell of the correct size (either a worker cell or a drone cell, depending on what she needs to lay), she inserts her head into the cell to make sure it's empty and clean, and to ensure she hasn't already laid an egg in the cell.
	Laying the egg After the queen locates a suitable cell in which to lay an egg, she inserts her abdomen and lays a single egg at the base of the cell.

Honeybees and their Life
Honeybee Metamorphosis

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