Do Termites Have a Queen? Kings, Queens and Termite Castes

The royal pair: a queen and a king

Termites are social insects with a division of labor between castes, much like ants and honey bees, but their family life is different. In ant and bee colonies, males mate once and die, and the queen stores their sperm for years. In termites, the male survives. The king lives beside the queen in the nest and continues to mate with her throughout their lives.

The pair starts as alates, winged adults that leave their home colony in a swarm, often on warm days after rain. After a short flight they land, break off their wings and pair up. Together they dig a small chamber in soil or wood, seal it and begin raising their first brood. The early workers are fed by the king and queen themselves, and once they are old enough, the workers take over all the chores.

The castes of a termite colony

A typical termite colony has three main castes, plus young that are still developing.

Unlike in ants and bees, where all workers are female, termite workers and soldiers include both sexes. In many termites, young individuals stay flexible: depending on the colony’s needs, they can become workers, soldiers or nymphs with wing buds that grow into the next generation of alates.

In the eastern subterranean termite of North America, soldiers make up only about 1–2% of the colony, and most of the termites are pale, blind workers.

Giant egg-laying queens

In many species, the queen changes after she starts laying eggs. Her abdomen swells as her ovaries grow, a condition called physogastry, and the hard plates on her back are pushed apart by stretched, pale membrane. The most extreme examples are the mound-building Macrotermes termites of Africa. A Macrotermes bellicosus queen can grow more than 10 cm (4 in) long, while the workers around her are only about 3–4 mm long.

At this size the queen can barely move. She lives in a thick-walled royal chamber, usually near the base of the nest, constantly attended by workers that feed her, lick her and carry away her eggs to nursery chambers. A young queen lays only a few eggs, but queens of the biggest African species are estimated to lay thousands of eggs a day at their peak. Read more about these nests in how do termites build mounds?

Not all queens become giants. In subterranean termites such as Reticulitermes, the queen’s abdomen swells only moderately, and the colony’s egg-laying is often shared among many reproductives.

How long termite queens and kings live

Termite queens are among the longest-lived insects. A review of ant and termite lifespans by the Swiss biologist Laurent Keller in 1998 found that queens of several termite species live for many years, and for some large mound builders, estimates of a decade or two are common. Claims that termite queens reach 50 years are often repeated but are not well documented.

By contrast, workers usually live only a year or two, and swarmers that fail to found a colony die within hours or days. Kings generally live about as long as their queens.

What happens when a queen dies

In many species, the colony can replace its founders. Nymphs, and sometimes workers, can develop into secondary or neotenic reproductives, which never fly but can mate and lay eggs. Chemical signals, or pheromones, from the king and queen normally stop this from happening; when the royals weaken or die, the signals fade and new reproductives appear.

Some termites have an even stranger solution. In the Japanese termite Reticulitermes speratus, researchers found that the queen produces her replacement queens by parthenogenesis, without mating, so they are genetically almost copies of her. Workers and swarmers, by contrast, are produced normally from mating with the king. This lets the queen’s genes live on in the colony long after she dies.

Termite queens vs honey bee queens

Termite and honey bee queens are both egg-layers at the center of a colony, but there are big differences. A honey bee queen mates early in life, often with more than a dozen drones, and stores the sperm. A termite queen mates repeatedly with one king for life. A honey bee colony reproduces by swarming with the old queen; a termite colony sends out thousands of winged kings and queens to found brand-new colonies.

Both queens control their colonies largely through pheromones rather than by giving orders. See what does a queen bee do?

Myths and facts

Myth: the queen rules the colony. Neither termite nor bee queens give commands. The colony’s work is organized by many small interactions between workers, guided by chemical signals.

Myth: a colony always dies with its queen. In many termites, replacement reproductives take over, so the colony can survive the loss of its founders. Workers keep feeding the whole colony, as described in what do termites eat?