How does the queen bee become queen?
Agree with the other answers, though often in commercial and backyard hives queens are introduced into queenless hives by placing a wire cage (a bit bigger than a matchbox) containing the new queen, with several attendants, into the hive. The passage out for the queen is blocked by pressed candy sugar. The bees in the hive, even if they need a queen desperately, would kill the new queen if she was not protected (a process called “balling the queen” because all the bees jump on her in a big ball of bees and rip her apart) The hive has to get used to her first. By the time the hive bees eat through the sugar blocking the door to the queen they have become acclimated to her smell, want her to be queen, and she is safe to emerge.
