Scientists Figure Out Why Bee Colonies Overthrow Their Queens

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-have-finally-figured-out-why-bee-colonies-overthrow-their-queens/

Loosely explained as follows - more detail in the article…

Queens with viral infections have smaller ovaries and they lay fewer eggs.

Infection causes queens to produce less methyl oleate, a phermeomone responsible for social-stability

Workers notice the drop in pheromone and treat it as queen failure which triggers supersedure.

This explains why colonies sometimes overthrow queens early, even if they look normal.

In tests when synthetic pheromone was added back in then this reduced supersedure attempts.