Read Telling the Bees for Free Online Page B

process is begun when a colony’s queen grows old and her egg production begins to lag. Did you know, Detective, that queen bees are no different genetically than any other worker bee?”
    Taking his silence as tacit acknowledgment of his ignorance in the ways of bees, I proceeded to lay out for him the process of differentiation that occurs in the hive, a process that begins, as any apiarist knows, once the eggs are laid into the queen cells. I explained how, as soon as the eggs hatch, the nurse bees begin to feed the larvae a specially prepared mixture of regurgitated honey and pollen called royal jelly.
    “This royal jelly is what causes certain organs and characteristics to develop in these young bees that transforms each one from an ordinary worker bee into a virgin queen . . .”
    “Mr. Honig,” the detective interjected. I paused, waiting for him to speak, but after a moment of silence he simply shook his head, and so I continued without offense, explaining that the transformation of a select worker bee into queen has everything to do with the life cycle of the hive.
    “Only the first of these proto-queens to emerge from her cell will live. The others are generally dispatched with a lethal sting by the new regent, who then does the same to her weaker queen mother. Of course in the rare instances when the young queen is unable to perform the requisite matricide, or if she herself proves flawed, the hive workers are quick to surround the doomed queen, who surrenders without a fight to suffocation by the rabble.
    “It is the law of the hive that only a queen may sting another queen,” I explained. “And the queen will sting none but her own.”
    Having finished the last of his lemonade, the detective began to run his thick forefinger around the rim of his empty glass, producing a high-pitched squeal that was louder, but lower, than that of a newly hatched queen. I pointed out that by whatever means the coup is accomplished, the new virgin queen must next wait for the first sunny day to take wing, where she is quickly followed by a score or so of young drones who pursue her fifty or more feet into the air to mate with her on the fly. The handful of young drones that are successful in their ardor are eviscerated during the mating process. The others are usually cast out of the hive, or killed outright, by the worker bees sometime in early fall, when the drones, having already outlived the only useful purpose for which they were born, are deemed expendable.
    “In the beehive, the age-old maxim ‘He who does not work does not eat’ is strictly adhered to.”
    “Truly fascinating, Mr. Honig,” the detective said somewhat drily to my ear. Pushing his lemonade glass aside, he extracted his notebook from his suit jacket and laid it open in front of him.
    “Now, about last Friday . . .”

Six
    T HE QUEEN BEE: The mother of all bees in the hive, she has two functions: to lay as many eggs as she can and to emit the pheromone that will produce the next queen.
    T his is what I’ve been trying to explain,” I said, offering to refill Detective Grayson’s lemonade. He cupped his palm over his glass. “I was far too preoccupied requeening my cross-tempered number four hive to have paid any attention to the goings-on at my neighbors’ house that unfortunate day.”
    Beehives, like any human household, have a temperament every bit as distinctive as the dominant personalities that reside within.
    “While there are devices we can employ to keep our bees gentle enough to accommodate, and in some cases even relish, our presence, there is only so much a conscientious beekeeper can do before more drastic measures must be taken,” I said.
    “Just
how
drastic?” Detective Grayson asked. His voice rose to suggest curiosity, but I suspected it was more from investigative reflex than any genuine apian interest.
    “Requeening the cross hive,” I said. “Requeening is never my first choice. I usually try hanging a wave