Previous work by Tarpy & al, showed that worker bee selectively cull developing queens:

workers control exactly which larvae are chosen to be
reared as queens, as well as control the nutritional
environment provided to larvae, which determines
whether the larvae develop as queens or workers. Besides
this worker control during larval development, here we
demonstrate another level of social control. We find that
queen cells accessible to workers produce larger adult
queens (as measured by thorax width) than from queen cells
from which workers are experimentally excluded. These
results indicate that adult workers may be ‘‘weeding out’’
lower quality queens.

Honey bee colonies regulate queen reproductive traits by controlling which queens survive to adulthood
D. R. Tarpy, & al. Insect. Soc. (2016) 63:169–174

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