History Main / InsectQueen

In works that feature a HiveCasteSystem or cartoonish depictions of eusocial insects, writers like to portray the queens (and occassionally king insects) as ''[[VisualPun literal]]'' monarchs, complete with crown, royal attire, and a court of loyal subjects. Even if the colony is less like a human-like monarchy and more of a HordeOfAlienLocusts, expect the queen to at least possess traits resembling regalia that indicate their authority, such as a [[CrownShapedHead biological "crown"]]. If [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen evil]], expect the queen to act akin to an EvilMatriarch, with no qualms about siccing her WeaponizedOffspring on her enemies since she can [[WeHaveReserves always make more]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'': Q. Bee is the queen of the Soul Bees, monsters that imitate the appearance of humans then prey on their souls.

** The original version of the game introduces the Ant Queen, fought as a MiniBoss in Azure Rainforest (this also applies to the remake ''Millenium Girl''), and in later games as an OptionalBoss in the sea (''[[VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIITheDrownedCity The Drowned City]]'') and in a MiniDungeon (''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyNexus Nexus]]''). If the egg sacs she drops aren't gotten rid of prior to the battle, the newborn Ants will eventually join the battle, making things more difficult.

** The original version of the game introduces the Ant Queen, fought as a MiniBoss in Azure Rainforest (this also applies to the remake ''Millenium Girl''), and in later games as an OptionalBoss in the sea (''The Drowned City'') and in a MiniDungeon (''Nexus''). If the egg sacs she drops aren't gotten rid of prior to the battle, the newborn Ants will eventually join the battle, making things more difficult.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

[[folder: Asian Animation]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]

** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]], ComicBook/LanaLang sometimes gained insect attributes to become a heroine aptly known as "Insect Queen." In a nod to this, there was a Modern Age villain known as Insect Queen, ruler of an imperial group of insects called the All-Hive (not remarkably different from the alien incarnations of Queen Bee) who reshaped her body to be like Lana. In ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 2010]]'' story arc ''ComicBook/DeathAndTheFamily'', Insect Queen takes over Lana and attempts to invade Metropolis with an army of giant insects.
* ''ComicBook/TheBroodSaga'': [[https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Brood_(Race) The Brood]] are a wasp-like alien race that are blatant expies of the [[Franchise/{{Alien}} xenomorphs]]. While most often foes of the ComicBook/XMen, they have made appearance in several other titles as well. A Brood Queen lays an egg inside the body of a sentient organism; however instead of hatching out of its host, the egg converts the host's body into a Brood, with the Brood embryo's mind taking over completely. This is especially dangerous when mutants or other superpowered individuals are infected, since the new Brood may retain their host's powers.

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Films -- Animated]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'' has the Queen who is both royalty and the literal mother of new members of the colony like real ant queens, though unlike real ant queens her second-in-command is a male General and troop leader who has as many loyalists in the army as she has.

[[folder: Film -- Live-Action]]

[[folder: Literature]]

* ''Literature/{{Riftwar}}'': The Cho-ja are insectoid beings larger than a human, allied with the Tsurani Empire. The Empire trilogy reveals that they are born in individual hives, ruled by queens.
* ''Literature/RogueQueen'' by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp. Bit of subversion included as Iroedh is initially a worker, and when she sides up with her Terranian friends, [[spoiler:she eats their food, and the meat turns her into a full-fledged queen]]. Which comes very handy in the showdown. (BTW, her race is humanoid and the insect stuff purely social.)

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

[[folder: Other Sites]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* Queenie is a cartoon queen bee of a happy hive in the ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' episode "Risky Beesness." Her subjects are drawn away by the hypnotic music of Irwina Allen, an entomologist who would turn the worker bees into her personal mindless minions. Queenie rules her hive by consensus, fulfilling this trope, while Irwina is a usurper befitting the HiveQueen trope.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' Has the Slurm Worms from Wormulon, slug-like creatures that can replicate themselves when cut in half and they work on the very popular soft drink Slurm. They also have a much larger Queen Slurm, but she is not shown producing offspring. [[spoiler: She is, however, the one that produces all the Slurm by ejecting it from her backside. It seems that new queens can be produced by submerging someone in Royal Slurm, but according to one of the workers, a queen formed by a lower caste produces foul-tasting Slurm.]]

* A villainous example is the evil Bug Queen in ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack''. We see several queens in the show and all of them are monsters. They colonize other worlds just by breeding thousands of bugs and extinguish the natives.

* The Color Classics cartoon "Ants In The Plants" from 1940 has a queen ant with cape and crown, first seen teaching her soldier ants to beware of the ant-eater, and later acts as a DamselInDistress for the diminutive BigDamnHeroes to rescue.

* ''WebComic/KevinAndKell'': Averted. There's Cassiopeia, queen of the bee colony across the street from Lindesfarne and Fenton. However, she says the drones ''aren't'' her children and "queen" in this context is more like "fraternity house mother". (For bonus points, they live right near an university.) She's also not really any different in size or shape to the drones, the main difference being she has a bigger neck ruff. She's also not a villain: the worst she and her colony have done was keep the nocturnal Lindesfarne and Fenton awake with their buzzing, and once they knew, they agreed to keep it down.

** Queen Chrysalis has similarities to this, being the Queen of the Changelings, an insectoid/equinoid species who imitate other ponies and [[EmotionEater feed on their love]]. Her goal is to conquer Equestria and use the land and its inhabitants as a virtually infinite food source for her subjects. After she's ousted from power by her subjects (who are sick of her taking all their food for herself) and King Thorax takes over, it's revealed that while she fancied herself as this they are apparently born from parents the way ponies are.

[[folder:Asian Animation]]

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin'':

In fiction, however, such individuals tend to be depicted as not only being baby factories responsible for birthing the entire colony, but also as matriarchs who rule over it to varying degrees. The "queen" in question may be [[LargeAndInCharge bigger]] and much [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking stronger or dangerous]] than the rest of her kin, and tends to be portrayed as being capable of commanding swarms of drones as her own personal minions and/or bodyguards in a similar manner to {{Hive Queen}}s. This is TruthInTelevision to some extent (queens are bigger and can and do fight in at least some species, and also communicate with and "command" their children through pheromonal influences), but fiction tends to exaggerate it considerably.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': The Empress Bulblax is based on queen termites. She is a large, bloated Bulborb that attacks by rolling about and releasing Bulborb Larvae to devour your Pikmin.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'':
** The series has the Ant Queen, fought as a MiniBoss in the first game (as well as the remake ''Millenium Girl''), third (''The Drowned City'') and sixth (''Nexus''). If the egg sacs she drops aren't gotten rid of prior to the battle, the newborn Ants will eventually join the battle, making things more difficult.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1702 SCP-1702 ("The French Hive")]] is a hive of bee people under France, with a hive caste system. The Queen of SCP-1702 (SCP-1702-1) is highly intelligent, lays eggs that become the other members of the hive, and is killed by the sterile females (SCP-1702-3) if she becomes flawed in any way. Any female human being who happens to be inside SCP-1702 when this happens becomes the new Queen.

Many insect species in the orders Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps) and Isoptera (termites) exhibit a behavior known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality Eusociality]], a behavioral structure which involves a singular "queen" whose only or primary purpose is to [[MookMaker lay eggs]]. The other members of the queen's colony have the purpose of mating with her, tending to her, or protecting her. (Think of the colony as one big "superorganism," rather than a group of individual ants/bees/etc. The queen and the males that mate with her are the "genitals" of that "superorganism.")

* ''Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld'': [[CuteMonsterGirl Queen Diva]] is the ruler of the Bugrom Empire. As such, part of her duty is to ensure there are a sufficient number of troops for their army and to sustain the Bugrom Citadel, which requires that she mate with someone. So, when [[LaughablyEvil Jinnai]] notes the shortage of troops and suggests she lays more eggs, she takes him up [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale on the offer.]] But while all the other Bugrom look like [[BigCreepyCrawlies huge bipedal bugs]], Diva barely even qualifies as a CuteMonsterGirl, completely [[AvertedTrope averting]] the LargeAndInCharge aspects of the trope and [[https://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5092-874407723.png looking exactly like a normal (if absurdly hot) human girl with a few cosplay accessories]].

* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' has a card named "Insect Queen". If she destroys an enemy monster, she generates a weak Insect-type token monster on your side of the field. However, [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen she has to eat her subjects before she can attack.]] [[WouldHurtAChild Her sacrifice is more than likely one of the aforementioned offspring.]]

* ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'': Queen Sectonia is a giant wasp who wears classical royal attire and leads the Sectras in an invasion of the sky kingdom of Floralia. [[spoiler:It's strongly implied in subsequent games that she wasn't always a wasp and used to look like Taranza, not to mention that she was actually a good ruler until she became corrupted by the [[VideoGame/KirbyAndTheAmazingMirror Dimension Mirror]]]].

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'': Queen Bee or the Honey Queen is the queen of all bees in the universe, and dresses in appropriate regalia. She's also playable in ''VideoGame/MarioKart7'', where she is [[YourSizeMayVary decidedly smaller.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' doesn't involve any real insect queens, but it does reference this trope for comedic purposes: [[CloudCuckoolander Inferno]], who transforms into a massive ant, frequently refers to Megatron as his "queen," much to the latter's chagrin. Towards the end of the series, Inferno more often uses the term "royalty" instead, possibly to avoid drawing Megatron's ire.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' Has the Slurm Worms from Wormulon, slug-like creatures that can replicate themselves when cut in half and they work on the very popular soft drink Slurm. They also have a much larger Queen Slurm, but she is not shown producing offspring. [[spoiler: She is, however, the one that produces all the Slurm by ejecting it from her backside. It seems that new queens can be produced by submerging someone in Royal Slurm, but according to one of the workers, a queen formed by a lower caste produces foul-tasting Slurm]].

* The Color Classics cartoon "Ants In The Plants" from 1940 has a queen ant with cape and crown, first seen teaching her soldier ants to beware of the ant-eater, and later acts as DistressedDamsel for the diminutive BigDamnHeroes to rescue.

* ''Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld'': [[CuteMonsterGirl Queen Diva]] is the ruler of the Bugrom Empire. As such, part of her duty is to ensure there are a sufficient number of troops for their army and to sustain the Bugrom Citadel, which requires that she mate with someone. So, when [[LaughablyEvil Jinnai]] notes the shortage of troops and suggests she lays more eggs, she takes him up [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale on the offer.]] But while all the other Bugrom look like [[BigCreepyCrawlies huge bipedal bugs]], Diva barely even qualifies as a CuteMonsterGirl, completely [[AvertedTrope averting]] the LargeAndInCharge aspects of the trope and [[https://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5092-874407723.png looking exactly like a normal (if absurdly hot) human girl with a few cosplay accessories]], taking BizarreSexualDimorphism UpToEleven.

* ''Literature/EndersGame': The Hive Queen is both this and, well, a HiveQueen. She is both the telepathic center of her species' HiveMind and its sole breeding female.

** The Bee Kingdom has Queen Bianca, another queen known to be a kind and gentle ruler, whose focus on scientific advances greatly improved the kingdom, making her one of the most popular rulers. She is also the close friend to Queen Elizant II, and the latter occasionally asks her for advice in times of need.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' has both the Vespoid Queen (a KingMook version of the Vespoids) from ''[[VideoGame/MonsterHunterFreedom2 Freedom Unite]]'' and the Seltas Queen (and by extension the Desert subspecies) from the fourth generation of games. The Vespoid Queen is aided by the smaller Vespoids during battle, but otherwise she's not too difficult to defeat; but the two Seltas Queens are more powerful as, with their male Seltas partners, they make up for more lethal duos when confronting the hunter.

* Franchise/TheDCU:

** ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': In the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]], ComicBook/LanaLang sometimes gained insect attributes to become a heroine aptly known as "Insect Queen." In a nod to this, there was a Modern Age villain known as Insect Queen, ruler of an imperial group of insects called the All-Hive (not remarkably different from the alien incarnations of Queen Bee) who reshaped her body to be like Lana. In ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' storyline ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 Death and the Family]]'', Insect Queen takes over Lana and attempts to invade Metropolis with an army of giant insects.
* Franchise/MarvelUniverse: [[https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Brood_(Race) The Brood]] are a wasp-like alien race that are blatant expies of the [[Franchise/{{Alien}} xenomorphs]]. While most often foes of the Franchise/XMen, they have made appearance in several other titles as well. A Brood Queen lays an egg inside the body of a sentient organism; however instead of hatching out of its host, the egg converts the host's body into a Brood, with the Brood embryo's mind taking over completely. This is especially dangerous when mutants or other superpowered individuals are infected, since the new Brood may retain their host's powers.