In a palace intrigue worthy of George R R Martin, a new study has shown that some bee workers are queenslayers who will rise up and kill their queen if she produces the wrong sort of male offspring. … Female bees, like us, are diploid, coming from fertilised eggs with two sets of alleles.

Why do bees reject queen?

The first and by far the most common reason why honey bees reject a new queen is the fact that she is unfamiliar to them. This is because every queen leaves around her a specific pheromone that allows the worker bees to recognize her. In simple terms, a new queen just doesn’t smell right to the worker bees.

Can bees reject a queen?

Older worker bees will reject queens that they are not familiar with and tend to view them as a colony invader, even when they have no hope of raising a new queen on their own. … This is why queen rejection by a colony will occur if the queen is released from her cage too soon.