<P> The surviving virgin queen will fly out on a sunny, warm day to a "drone congregation area" where she will mate with 12 - 15 drones . If the weather holds, she may return to the drone congregation area for several days until she is fully mated . Mating occurs in flight . The young queen stores up to 6 million sperm from multiple drones in her spermatheca . She will selectively release sperm for the remaining 2--7 years of her life . </P> <P> The young virgin queen has a limited time to mate . If she is unable to fly for several days because of bad weather and remains unmated, she will become a "drone layer ." Drone - laying queens usually signal the death of the colony, because the workers have no fertilized (female) larvae from which to raise worker bees or a replacement queen . (Pearcy et al. 2004) </P> <P> Though timing can vary, matings usually take place between the sixth and tenth day after the queen emerges . Egg laying usually begins 2 to 3 days after the queen returns to the beehive, but can start earlier than this . </P> <P> A special, rare case of reproduction is thelytoky: the reproduction of female workers or queens by laying worker bees . Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency . </P>

When does a queen bee start laying eggs
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