Bee inspired race

>implying implicit implications

That actually sounds like an interesting setup
Eusocial species are an unexplored subject in fantasy but that has lots of potential to be interesting.

Depends if you want the society to be directly based on bees or loosely inspired by it.

Each colony usually has only one queen (though it's not nearly as simple as most people think--there are power grabs and power struggles, even). Bees don't quite have a male/female split the way humans do; queens and workers are both haploid, drones are diploid.

Unless you're an epicurean, odds are good that workers constitute all the bees you've ever seen. They represent the vast majority of the colony. They harvest nectar and pollen to build their hives to store their larvae and to make food to last through the winter (although the majority of the workers die for the winter).

Drones exist solely for breeding. When a new queen is born (usually once per year) she and a few drones go out to meet up with other recently-born queens and drones and get buzzy. Then with all the sperm they've collected, they find a place to make a new hive.

I might be misremembering some of this. Check out More Than Honey and the sixth episode of Life in the Undergrowth for more.

>women are the only sentient members of their race
>sentient
So women are the only ones able to percieve or feel things? Wow, that sounds like a pretty large gap between the two.

To add to these, one of the main theories for cooperation in a hive is kin selection.

Because of the haploid/diploid sexual development, every worker shares on average 75% (50 or 100) of their genetic material with each other (in terms of "stuff passed down from their parents").

They share 50% with the queens, and 25% (50 or 0) with their brother drones, which could explain why the drones are the first to go when times get tough.

It turns out having your own offspring isn't always the best way to pass on your genes. For the non-reproducing worker bees, the best way is to contribute to the survival of the hive and raise your sisters, so some of them will grow up to be queens and leave to establish her own hive - passing on the genes that you share the bulk of.

Your magical realm post made me think of the "Bee People" race in 3.5, here's pics of that if it helps.

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worker bees can't have sex at least.

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