#bleehhhhh

More on QMP: It is produced at the Queen's mandibular glands and it's got 5 main components (I won't go into the details of organic chemistry). The functions of QMP includes: "controlling" the worker bees to look after the Queen (attendance and grooming); suppress worker bees from constructing Queen Bee cells (don't worry I will get into the difference of larva cells later); delay swarming (putting simply, a swarm is basically when the hive all flies in a group to relocate); stimulate hive productivity (comb construction, nurturing young, foraging, food storage... Without this, worker bees would not do anything); attract drones (male bees) for mating; inhibit development of worker bees' ovaries.

Maybe it is self contradictory to say Queens have little commanding power and then immediately explain what QMP does. However there is actually no genetic difference between worker bees and Queen Bees at birth. So really, it works as another accidental or possibly intentional parallel with Muu. Nature vs nurture. Muu was born a normal girl but raised differently to the vast majority (and she looks different too. Supposedly. If we ignore how her hair color is normal compared to the blue, red, green....Queen Bees can be up to double the size of worker bees. Definitely stands out in appearance.) Queen Bee larvae are fed royal jelly for their whole life but worker bee larvae switch to the standard diet of bee bread (pollen and honey) early on. Muu, similarly, would've been growing up with special treatment and getting better things than others (at least on a materialistic level). (On a side note, the green thing Muu is served in INMF looks like larva...)

Another difference in nurture is that the brood capping of larva cells of Queens vs workers is structure and density. Queen, worker and drone cells all look different. Worker bee larva cells are 'closed' in a flat kind of way. Drone cells are closed in a way that sticks out slightly, it's like a dome 'puffed out'. Queen bee larva cells usually stick out at the bottom of the frame if it's a second queen for swarming cell or in the middle if it's a replacement queen cell (in the case of honeybees), some would describe it kind of like a peanut. (Not including a picture in case anyone reading has trypophobia, look it up if you're interested tho, I think its quite cool). (Also, Queens and workers have no initial genetic difference because all female bees come from fertilised eggs but drones come from unfertilised eggs.)

Back to royal jelly, it's a nutrient dense food source for Queen bees (and larvae less than 3 days after hatching). It is what allows Queen Bees to live much longer than workers (Queens live a few years whereas workers only live a few weeks. Granted, royal jelly isn't the only reason as the Queen Bee would be protected by the workers). That said, royal jelly is not magic. If a larvae has been fed bee bread for a while before going back to royal jelly, you're not gonna get a very good queen. Bee bread has an inhibitor of ovary development. Mature Queen Bees cannot eat royal jelly by themselves, they must be fed by workers. This is how workers actually control the Queen (one of the reasons why the Queen's position is actually rather unstable in my opinion, as said, the hive works as a matriarchal democracy, not a monarchy. Monarchy wouldn't work anyway, all members of the hive are siblings....)

There are a few reasons why workers would stop feeding their Queen royal jelly but I'm only going to focus on the reason most similar to Muu. Supersedure is the process of a honeybee colony replacing a failing Queen without swarming. (Failing as in she's old, or she's injured or she's just not performing her function as intended). It's a survival mechanism done for the 'greater good of the hive', nothing personal (I mean it when I say it's not personal. Worker bees will go off alone to die away from the hive when they sense their time is up to ensure the survival of the hive because their carcass would cause problems). Basically supersdure starts by raising a new Queen (special cell, royal jelly, all that special treatment). Then the workers would stop feeding the Queen (as stated earlier, the Queen can only eat by being fed by workers). Once the new Queen is ready, the workers cluster around the old Queen, vibrate to generate friction and heat that kills her.

Would I say Rei is the new Queen? Nope. Absolutely not. If anything Rei's more like an outsider who managed to injure the Queen (Muu), inhibit the Queen's ability to maintain her function in the hive. Honestly, Rei would remind me of a cuckoo bee if it weren't for the fact she wasn't able to blend in. Either way though, the chair incident reduced Muu's status among her peers. And so said injury (literally and metaphorically) would've messed with her metaphorical QMP, causing the workers to no longer look after her. They turned on her because she could no longer contribute the way she used to. Now the difference is that in Pain and INMF, it's framed as rebellion. Of course, from Muu's side it seems that way. But to begin with, were her "friends" really on her side? I'm not sure. It probably wasn't personal but a calculated move to ensure their own social survival. I dunno what to call Muu's case though. Is it planned or emergency supersedure? Even if a Queen Bee was infected with something like nosema (its a parasite affecting the gut), the hive would focus on raising a new bee first as far as I know. For a Queen to be killed before she has a successor, it's more like a predator killed the Queen or a beekeeper accidentally squashed the Queen (beekeeper Rei???). Um well. I dunno if there was a new Queen or what so do what you will with the information I've given you.

Or perhaps, it still works if we make the killing part literal and not just like 'social death'. The bullying hasn't killed Muu yet maybe because they don't have a new Queen yet... And so they kind of somewhat still need her around until a new Queen's ready, even if it means they're drastically reducing the special treatment.

Oh by the way. Queen Bees can sting. But they're wayyyyy less venomous than a worker bee's. Usually Queens are docile but they use it to fight rival Queens. I guess you could use this to support Queen Rei theory if that's a thing at all. Ah but also, you know how Muu stabs Rei multiple times? Funny thing... Both honeybee and bumblebee queens can sting multiple times. All female bumblebees have smooth stingers that aren't barbed, but only honeybee queens would have that kind of stinger (worker honeybees have barbed stingers and die after stinging. Drones do not have stingers). Regardless if you want to treat Muu as an apis or bombus, as a Queen, she can attack multiple times.

To sum up, Queen Bees do not control the hive in a traditional sense. She just enjoys special privileges like royal jelly, protection, grooming etc because she's the only one who can lay eggs and produce QMP. But actual decisions like when to overthrow the Queen, when and where to swarm to, when to clean, where to forage, that's all the power of workers. Muu did not give orders for others to go after Muu like how a Queen Bee cannot order workers to attack threats. Rather workers will act on their own accord (collective decision of workers) and the alarm pheromones are released by the workers. When an intruder (Rei) enters the hive (the school), the workers would sting the threat without the Queen Bee doing anything different to her usual function.

WAIT ONE LAST THING. How many wings do you see that Muu has in INMF. Or how in her birthday art (they're not actually wings I know but how many "wings" would you say you see). Cuz uh. If she does not have 4 wings, we've got a big problem here. Bees are part of the Hymenoptera order, winged insects of this order has 2 pairs of clear wings with less venation compared to most other flying insects. If we're seeing like, only one pair of wing (two wings total), that would make Muu a true fly (order: Diptera). And if Muu has more than 4 wings, she'd be a prehistoric extinct species. (Obviously I'm not expecting accurate biology and it's not that deep, creative liberty is a thing, but it's for my own interest).

(Why didn't I talk about drones much? Uh. Muu went to an all girls school if I remember correctly. And drones are considered useless in the hive.... Their sole purpose is to mate which is irrelevant to what we know of Muu.)