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Queen bee   /kwin bi/   Listen
noun
Queen  n.  
1.
The wife of a king.
2.
A woman who is the sovereign of a kingdom; a female monarch; as, Elizabeth, queen of England; Mary, queen of Scots. "In faith, and by the heaven's quene."
3.
A woman eminent in power or attractions; the highest of her kind; as, a queen in society; also used figuratively of cities, countries, etc. " This queen of cities." " Albion, queen of isles."
4.
The fertile, or fully developed, female of social bees, ants, and termites.
5.
(Chess) The most powerful, and except the king the most important, piece in a set of chessmen.
6.
A playing card bearing the picture of a queen; as, the queen of spades.
Queen apple. A kind of apple; a queening. "Queen apples and red cherries."
Queen bee (Zool.), a female bee, especially the female of the honeybee. See Honeybee.
Queen conch (Zool.), a very large West Indian cameo conch (Cassis cameo). It is much used for making cameos.
Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king.
Queen dowager, the widow of a king.
Queen gold, formerly a revenue of the queen consort of England, arising from gifts, fines, etc.
Queen mother, a queen dowager who is also mother of the reigning king or queen.
Queen of May. See May queen, under May.
Queen of the meadow (Bot.), a European herbaceous plant (Spiraea Ulmaria). See Meadowsweet.
Queen of the prairie (Bot.), an American herb (Spiraea lobata) with ample clusters of pale pink flowers.
Queen pigeon (Zool.), any one of several species of very large and handsome crested ground pigeons of the genus Goura, native of New Guinea and the adjacent islands. They are mostly pale blue, or ash-blue, marked with white, and have a large occipital crest of spatulate feathers. Called also crowned pigeon, goura, and Victoria pigeon.
Queen regent, or Queen regnant, a queen reigning in her own right.
Queen's Bench. See King's Bench.
Queen's counsel, Queen's evidence. See King's counsel, King's evidence, under King.
Queen's delight (Bot.), an American plant (Stillinqia sylvatica) of the Spurge family, having an herbaceous stem and a perennial woody root.
Queen's metal (Metal.), an alloy somewhat resembling pewter or britannia, and consisting essentially of tin with a slight admixture of antimony, bismuth, and lead or copper.
Queen's pigeon. (Zool.) Same as Queen pigeon, above.
Queen's ware, glazed English earthenware of a cream color.
Queen's yellow (Old Chem.), a heavy yellow powder consisting of a basic mercuric sulphate; formerly called turpetum minerale, or Turbith's mineral.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Queen bee" Quotes from Famous Books



... bees returning to their old abode, we placed some burning tobacco in the hollow, the smell and fumes of which drove them from the tree, when they wished to enter; and, finally, they settled in the new hive, where the queen bee, doubtless, had ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... promulgated: streets and squares are renamed: Rues des Droits de l'Homme, de la Revolution, des Piques, de la Loi, efface the old landmarks. We must now say Rue Honore, not St. Honore, and Mont Marat for Montmartre. Naturalists had written of the queen bee: away with the hated word! She is now named of all good patriots the abeille pondeuse, the egg-laying bee. In the Punch and Judy shows the gallows gives place to the guillotine. No more emblems on playing ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... is, nobody has any sense—I mean the perfect article—but me. For I say, what if "living while you live" comes to not living at all? Is that what you call working? And why not let other people work? Is Mrs. Lane to be made the queen bee of New York philanthropy, and to become such an enormous conglomeration of goodness [319] that she can't get out of her hospital hive to visit her friends, nor let them visit her, with any chance of seeing her? And is nobody worth caring for unless he has been knocked ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... selection. Now, nothing is more certain than that these characteristics—sterility, a cavity in the thigh for collecting wax, a proboscis for gathering honey, &c.—are due to the treatment which the eggs laid by the queen bee receive after they have left her body. Take an egg and treat it in a certain way, and it becomes a working bee; treat the same egg in a certain other way, and it becomes a queen. If the bees are in danger of becoming queenless ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler


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