Beekeeping
The queen is the only sexually mature female in the hive and all of the female worker bees and male drones are her offspring. The queen may live for up to three years or more and may be capable of laying half a million eggs or more in her lifetime. At the peak of the breeding season, late spring to summer, a good queen may be capable of laying 3,000 eggs in one day, more than her own body weight. This would be exceptional however; a prolific queen might peak at 2,000 eggs a day, but a more average queen might lay just 1,500 eggs per day. The queen is raised from a normal worker egg, but is fed a larger amount of royal jelly than a normal worker bee, resulting in a radically different growth and metamorphosis. The queen influences the colony by the production and dissemination of a variety of pheromones or "queen substances". One of these chemicals suppresses the development of ovaries in all the female worker bees in the hive and prevents them from laying eggs.
Bombus impatiens
A gyne mates with a male bee near the end of the hives life cycle. They rest on the ground or on vegetation in order to mate and the mating lasts from 10 to 80 minutes. In order to increase the probability of his genes getting passed down safely, the male mates for a certain amount of time to let his sperm harden during mating. Soon thereafter the gynes hibernate. The following spring they emerge from hibernation and set about to get strong on nectar and to find a suitable old mouse or chipmunk hole to begin a colony. The first thing she builds is a honeypot, then she fills it with food (nectar/pollen), making it easier to feed her new brood, which are raised in paper cells she builds. The queens lay about 2000 eggs in one season, but only half of them will survive to become full adults.