How Do Bees Cope with 9 Days Without a Queen?

When a bee colony suddenly loses its queen, its response is immediate and occurs on several levels: behavioural, biological and physiological. Bees are capable of surviving 9 days without a queen, provided that young brood was present in the hive at the moment of her loss; however, their condition and work structure undergo significant changes during this time.

Behavioural response and the first hours Bees sense the absence of the queen very quickly, usually within 10 to 30 minutes of her disappearance. This is due to the sudden interruption of the supply of queen substance (9-oxo-2-decenoic acid), which normally integrates the superorganism and inhibits the development of ovaries in the workers.

• Agitation: The colony falls into a state of intense excitement. Bees run chaotically over the front wall of the hive and around the entrance, as if searching for someone.
• Acoustic signals: A characteristic symptom of queenlessness is the colony producing a mournful, uneven and long-lasting hum, sometimes called the „wailing” of the bees.

The rescue mechanism: Building queen cells If eggs or young larvae (up to 2–3 days old) remain in the brood nest, the bee colony does not perish but enters a state of so-called incomplete orphaning.

• Rearing a new queen: The bees select several young worker larvae, enlarge their cells and begin to feed them intensively with royal jelly. In this way they create emergency queen cells.
• The state after 9 days: This is the critical milestone. A queen larva develops very quickly and approximately 8–9 days after the egg was laid (or 5 days from the larval stage), the queen cell is capped. Therefore, 9 days after the loss of the queen, capped emergency queen cells should already be present in the hive.
• Brood diagnosis: After 9 days there is no fresh open brood (eggs and young larvae) left in the nest, as all the larvae left by the old queen will have been capped by then. The presence of only capped brood is a clear signal to the beekeeper that the queen has been absent from the hive for at least 9 days.

Physiological changes and the threat of laying workers If the colony has no opportunity to rear a new queen (no young brood present), a state of complete orphaning sets in, which after 9 days begins to lead to the colony’s destruction.

• Anatomical laying workers: In a normal colony, nurse bees pass royal jelly to the larvae. When the queen and young larvae are absent, the workers themselves begin to consume the surplus protein-rich royal jelly. This causes their ovaries to start enlarging. After 9 days, a significant proportion of the workers may already have become anatomical laying workers (their ovaries are developed, but they are not yet laying eggs).
• Physiological laying workers: Although the mass laying of unfertilised eggs by workers (physiological laying workers) usually occurs after 25–30 days following the loss of the queen, failure to intervene within the first 9 days brings the colony considerably closer to this irreversible state.

Impact on colony performance and work The absence of the queen drastically reduces the colony’s vitality.

• Drop in activity: Bees lose their enthusiasm for collecting nectar and pollen.
• Cessation of construction: Wax production and the building of new combs come to a halt. If the colony had a frame inserted for comb building, after 9 days without a queen it will be empty or will contain only irregular drone „tongues”.
• Storing provisions: Since there is no longer brood to feed (which is diminishing anyway), bees may chaotically store honey in empty cells right in the centre of the brood nest, where brood would normally be.

In summary, after 9 days without a queen, the bees either already have capped emergency queen cells and are waiting for the new queen to emerge (which will happen in about a week), or — if they had no brood — they are well on their way to becoming a laying worker colony that is doomed without the beekeeper’s intervention.