After the fertilization flight, the task of the queen bee, the only fertile female and the physically largest individual in the family, recognizable by its long abdomen, is to lay eggs (the brood) in the cells of the honeycomb. She lays up to a few thousand eggs a day, from mid-January to mid-October.
To do this, she proceeds systematically in rotation from left to right, so as not to leave empty cells. This precise arrangement, which recalls the shape of a rose, will help the nurse bees in their tasks and will serve to concentrate and maintain the heat essential for the development of the brood.