Is it indeed? I checked and couldn’t find anything on the subject. Searching quickly finds articles like this about regicide, but those are stingless bees not honeybees. It also mentions it happens in other insects like yellowjackets and I know it happens in bumblebees. But there it is not some “for the good of the hive” thing, the hive is dying anyway and it is essentially a worker’s revolution by more dominant individuals who see the chance to lay their own eggs instead.
It would have to work differently in honeybees, and given that it such a well-known species isn’t given as an immediate example, I wonder if it normally happens.
