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.
Hercules beetle
Not much is known about the life cycle in the wild, but much evidence has been gained through observations of captive-bred populations. Females of "D. hercules" may lay up to 100 eggs on the ground or on dead wood. Once hatched, the larval stage of the Hercules beetle may last up to two years in duration, with the larva growing up to in length and weighing more than 100 g. The larvae, which are coloured yellow with a black head, undergo three instars. In laboratory conditions at 25 ± 1°C, the first stage lasts an average of 50 days, the second stage an average of 56 days, and the third an average of 450 days. The pupal stage lasts about 32 days, while adults can live for three to six months in captivity.