North Carolina Bee School Practice Exam

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What is the term for when a colony must replace a queen due to death, old age, or illness?

Fertilization
Swarming
Supersedure
Division

The correct answer is: Supersedure

The term for when a colony must replace a queen due to death, old age, or illness is supersedure. This process occurs as the colony recognizes that their current queen is no longer capable of fulfilling her role effectively. The workers will then start raising new queen cells to ensure the colony's continued health and productivity. Supersedure is a natural part of a bee colony's life cycle, functioning as a way to maintain genetic diversity and the overall vigor of the hive. In contrast, fertilization refers to the process of a queen mating with drones, which is unrelated to the replacement of an existing queen. Swarming is an event where a portion of the colony leaves with the old queen to establish a new hive, typically occurring when a colony becomes overcrowded, rather than in response to the queen's decline in health. Division is a more general term that can encompass various aspects of splitting, either of the hive during swarming or the separation of activities within the colony but does not specifically pertain to the replacement of the queen.