Supersedure
A colony quietly replacing a failing queen without swarming.
Beekeeping
Definition
When a queen's pheromone output falls, workers raise one or two replacement queens. The old queen is superseded rather than driven out, and mother and daughter sometimes lay alongside each other for a period. It is distinguished from swarming by the small number of queen cells and by the colony staying put.
See also
Other beekeeping terms
Sources
Sources
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
- The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild — Princeton University Press (2019) · Monograph
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