A queen honey bee fertilizes and lays up to 600,000 eggs during its three to five years reign.
But she mates only on her single mating flight with four or five males in succession.
She keeps the collected sperm in a reservoir and goes on laying eggs until
she is succeeded by one of her royal daughters.
The deposed queen flies away with half the workers and starts a new hive elsewhere.
Fertilized eggs produce workers and the queens. The UN-fertilised eggs produce males.
How she controls the proportion of the drones and the workers is magic to us!
Amazing Animal Kingdom 