Word.ws English Dictionary

queen bees

queen bees is the plural of queen bee.

Meaning of queen bee

Noun

queen bee (plural queen bees)

  1. A reproductive female (especially the only one) in a colony of bees.
    • It is generally believed that the queen bee mates only once in her lifetime.1947, AI Root, The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, Kessinger, published 2005, page 205
    Synonyms:
    beemother
  2. (colloquial, derogatory, idiomatic) The most important or dominant woman in an organization or situation.
    • She wrote very generously to aspiring women writers, gave them good advice, took time to read their manuscripts and comments, and warmly applauded their successes. There is not a hint of the Queen Bee in the attitude toward other women writers.1981 February 14, Peg Cruikshank, “The Warmth Shines Through”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 29, page 15
  3. (figuratively) A stem cell.

Questions about queen bees

What is queen bees the plural of?
Queen bees is the plural of queen bee.

Words near queen bees in the dictionary

  1. queen apple
  2. queen apples
  3. queen bee
  4. queen bee acid
  5. queen bee syndrome
  6. queen bees
  7. Queen Bess
  8. queen cake
  9. queen cakes
  10. Queen Camel
  11. queen cell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: queen bees (page history and authors); queen bee (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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