Why Hives Turn Against Their Queens

[00:00] A honeybee hive might seem like a peaceful utopia,  

[00:03] but in reality, it’s buzzing with internal 

[00:08] And the biggest conflict is between 

[00:12] Hi, I’m Cameron, and this is MinuteEarth.

[00:15] There are three types of 

[00:17] who lays all the eggs, her daughters – the 

[00:22] From the queen’s perspective, both 

[00:25] She needs daughters to run the hive, find 

[00:30] But she also needs sons to pass along 

[00:35] So it makes sense for a queen bee to  

[00:37] lay as many eggs of both types – 

[00:41] But the worker bees are the ones 

[00:44] and their priorities are way different; they’d 

[00:49] What’s more, because of the weird way 

[00:52] we made a whole other video about already, workers 

[00:58] only 50% with the queen, and a mere 25% with 

[01:04] beneficial for workers to favor their sisters 

[01:09] So they preferentially feed female 

[01:13] beg for scraps – which aren’t always 

[01:17] workers will even kill drone larvae to 

[01:21] So even though the queen is in charge of 

[01:26] control the sex ratio of the hive, and they 

[01:31] as a result, honeybee workers can outnumber 

[01:36] In other communal insects – 

[01:39] soldiers and royalty can be male or female, 

[01:44] these species’ sex ratios 

[01:47] But honeybees’ worker-queen conflict goes 

[01:52] Workers are also constantly keeping tabs on the 

[01:57] slows down, they start feeding one of 

[02:01] triggers her ovaries to start developing 

[02:05] In order to keep her crown, the 

[02:09] and kill these queens-to-be before they grow up.

[02:11] And if one does, two things can happen.

[02:14] The workers might gang up on the old queen 

[02:18] or, the hive might fragment, with 

[02:22] their new sister-queen and flying 

[02:25] In either case, some, if not all, workers 

[02:30] sister they’re more closely-related to, so 

[02:35] But while things will be great 

[02:39] her daughters might eventually 

[02:41] So while it might seem awesome to be the 

[02:50] Bees are awesome, but like many other important 

[02:55] The good news is we can actually help: 

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[03:04] they tackle problems with very specific goals 

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[03:12] you want to make a difference in nature, 

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[03:19] sign up using our code MinuteEarth1 will 

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