Queen bee
a queen bee 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 12 |
| Attacks |
Sting 1d8 poisonous |
| Base level | 9 |
| Base experience | 225 |
| Speed | 24 |
| Base AC | -4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1 |
| Nutritional value | 5 |
| Size | Tiny |
| Resistances | Poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
Poison (60%) |
|
A queen bee:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line132 |
The queen bee, a, is an insectoid monster that appears in NetHack.
Queen bee corpses are poisonous to eat, but have a 3⁄5 chance to convey poison resistance.
Generation
Queen bees are not randomly generated, but are eligible forms for polymorph. Each beehive contains a single queen bee, including the guaranteed one within the Wizard's Tower.
Queen bees can hatch from eggs, including ones laid by a player polymorphed into a queen bee - however, only 1⁄77 of eggs laid will be queen bee eggs, and the rest will be killer bee eggs.[1]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Killer bees can now eat royal jelly to become queen bees if no queen already exists on the level. Pet killer bees will actively seek out nearby royal jelly to do this. This will kill them if queen bees are genocided.Strategy
Queen bees are exceedingly fast, moving at twice your base speed, and unfortunate players that find an early beehive before a source of poison resistance would do well to steer clear. Queen bees are also eligible forms for shapeshifters such as the animal-favoring chameleon. Players with poison resistance should be solidly armored, with a weapon that can reliably land hits against the low-AC bees - on its own, a queen bee is quite vicious, but remains as vulnerable to wands and spells as normal bees.
More often than not though, a queen bee is accompanied by her hive; even with protection from poison instadeath. an improperly-handled beehive can rack up damage against you quickly. Stealth is an excellent property to use in clearing beehives, and crowd-control tactics like funneling through long hallways can keep the queen off your back until you have dealt with the weaker bees.
Encyclopedia entry
- See the encyclopedia entry for bee.
