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{{trope}}
{{Needs Image}}
A race with an ''allegedly'' eusocial structure; roughly, one queen and lots of workers. Since this inevitably brings to mind ants and bees, it's often a [[One-Gender Race]] with some military/warrior overtones. ''Almost always'' occurs if the race is [[Insectoid Aliens|even vaguely insectoid]], even though this isn't a common set-up for most insects. It's just very easy to associate a hive with a civilization structure, as bees and ants are often seen as extremely advanced insects who act a little like us.
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Compare [[Hive Caste System]] and [[Fantastic Caste System]]. Related to [[Intelligent Gerbil]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' - The Vajra fit this very well. However, while they do have a queen, it oversees the operation of their collective consciousness shared by each, as opposed to controlling them like mindless drones.
* The Bugrom in ''[[El-Hazard: The Magnificent World]]'' are an odd variation, in that they mostly look like overgrown beetles but their queen is an attractive humanoid woman with a few token insectoid traits.
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== Card Games ==
* The Slivers in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' are a form of Bee People. Whether they were engineered by Rathi biologists or a natural species enslaved by the evincars, the slivers had a queen and several specialist varieties—but the specialists could grant their own abilities to every other sliver in range. After the queen died in the overlay that put them in the heart of a volcano, they became almost entirely extinct—but a couple centuries later, some science wizards decided to bring them back...and promptly lost control, as they could not create a queen. Even after a few more apocalypses, the slivers are still kicking, though they've lost most of their numbers, and are even developing a central hive-mind.
** Also from the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor blocks, we have the faerie race. All faeries are born from and obey their absolute ruler, [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=152063 Oona, Queen of the Fae].
== Comic Books ==
* The Brood, the ''[[X-Men]]'' aliens that are distinctly "inspired" by ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]''. Oddly enough, the "queen" setup was given to the Brood ''before'' it was canon in the ''Alien'' movies.
* Despite being more like bats in appearance, the creatures [[Tom Strong]] were captured by on the moon were clearly hive-like in terms of society.
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== Film ==
* Apparently played straight in ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]'', and probably the inspiration for a great many others. {{spoiler|Ripley has to face down the Alien Queen in the endgame of the movie}}. In a deleted scene, Bishop and Hudson speculate on the Queen's existence, even comparing them to bees - which is ridiculed by Vasquez.
== Literature ==
* The Buggers from the ''[[Ender's Game|Ender]]'' novels by [[Orson Scott Card]].
* The Arachnids from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]''. The [[Starship Troopers (novel)|book version]] had non-biological technology, the [[Starship Troopers (film)|movie]] and [[Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles|animated series]] versions didn't. Note that in all three, the queens are mere egg-layers (though the animated series made her fairly smart) and the Brain Bug caste are the true leaders.
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* The Cho-Ja, from [[Raymond E. Feist]] and Janny Wurts' ''Empire Trilogy'', are social insectoids that hire out their warrior caste as mercenaries.
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] had one of these: The Killiks. They aren't lead by a queen though, but just form a collective consciousness. Any individual of another species that stay near a Killik nest for too long will end up joining that collective consciousness. It gets particularly dangerous when a [[The Dark Side|fallen]] [[Sentient Cosmic Force|Force User]] becomes a Joiner, as they can corrupt the entire nest. Force users in general who become Joiners can become ''fantastically'' powerful, able to draw on the Force potential of ''their entire nest''.
* The ''[[The
* [[L. Sprague de
* The Rix in Scott Westerfeld's ''The Risen Empire'' are an apparently bee-like human society dominated by sentient computers, who open the book by invading the titular Empire. {{spoiler|Subverted as the hero (and the reader) gradually learns more about them and realizes that he's been seeing them through the distorting lens of Imperial propaganda; by the end of the book it's clear that the Rix are actually the good guys.}}
* ''Man After Man'': The Hivers from Dougal Dixon's are human-descended herbivores which evolved into this.
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* Inverted with the thranx from the ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series, as these intelligent insectoids ''used to'' have single breeder-queens, but re-evolved the capacity for all females to breed in the course of attaining sentience. Mothers are still highly revered in their culture, and offspring are reared in creches.
== Live
* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''
** The Borg are basically like this, even going so far as to have a queen introduced in the film ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|First Contact]]''. They were originally envisioned as insectoids, but when they finally made it into the show appeared as cyborgs.
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* Speaking of vamps, the ones from ''[[Charmed]]'' act like bee people.
* The Chimerons from the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Delta and the Bannermen" are implied to have been like this (and they're overtly compared to bees throughout the episode). An unusual portrayal in that the entire species apart from the Queen has been wiped out.
== Real Life ==▼
* Weird [[Real Life]] example: the naked mole rat is one of the only mammals to exhibit eusocial behavior (the other one is the Damaraland mole rat). The queens keep the other female rats infertile with no desire to reproduce by having a community restroom chamber filled with her own urine, which contains suppressing hormones.▼
* Some social mammal groups (African Wild Dogs, meerkats) also restrict all breeding privileges to the top female of the group, but only because the boss females chase off any daughter who dares to breed, and/or kill their daughters' litters.▼
* [[Captain Obvious|Bees.]] Termites have been eusocial for even longer, and have far more complex castes and collective behaviors than ants or bees.▼
== Tabletop Games ==
* The Tyranids from ''[[Warhammer
▲* The Tyranids from ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. At the fleet level. The Tau Empire, meanwhile, have teamed up with the Vespids, though it's been heavily implied that the Ethereals have, to some degree, usurped the role of "queen" from whatever individuals filled that role before.
* The Myrmidons from Profound Decisions' ''Maelstrom'' LARP setting.
* ''[[Dungeons
** The official sourcebook, ''Races of the Dragon'', suggests that Kobolds are a race of reptilian people with bee-like behavior. They put very little emphasis on their own lives and self-worth, instead worrying about their tribe/city/etc's health and welfare as a whole. Descriptions of their mining and military operations extend the comparison: Miners move and work in perfect sync, using bardic music to help create a rhythm; military operations (those that aren't won by their legions of traps) are basically "swarm them, and if you can't win by Swarming, Swarm more (while you get the women and children to safety)". Children are conceived normally, but mates only stay together as long as it takes to lay the eggs, and hatchlings are raised communally with no knowledge of who their biological parents are. Individuals can form interpersonal friendships, but romantic love is a foreign concept to them.
** The Abeil from ''Monster Manual II'' are ''literal'' bee people—they have elflike heads, bodies, and arms but beelike legs, wings, and stingers. They're actually three symbiotic species: Vassals (workers), soldiers, and queens. Their reproductive habits aren't described in depth, but it's implied that there are both male and female vassals and soldiers and that both reproduce amongst themselves, but there are only female queens, and they reproduce by mating with male vassals. Vassals provide menial labor for the entire hive-city, but are individuals who have lives outside of their work, and some privileged individuals become part of the royal court (equivalent to drones). Each hive-city has a caste of queens, one of whom rules the hive and has inherent magic powers; when the old high queen dies or a new city is founded, one of the lesser queens consumes royal jelly and becomes a full-fledged queen.
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== Toys ==
* [[Bionicle]]: The Bohrok. Slightly subverted in that they have ''two'' queens, as well as the [[Elite Mooks|Bohrok]]-[[Praetorian Guard|Kal]], who are completely free-willed.
== Video Games ==
* The [[Pokémon]] [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:416Vespiquen.png Vespiquen], which is a humanoid bee queen. Combee, the pre-evolution, seem to serve as drones.
* The Hivers in the video game ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' play this straight, although [[All There in the Manual|supplemental material included with the game reveals that it's more multi-faceted and deeply considered than the typical Bee People]].
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*** Workers and Warriors elevated to Prince or (very rarely) Princess status are highborn. For Hivers, reincarnation is a fact of life and is used to preserve or promote particularly valued Sons.
** There may be several Queens. If a Princess manages to isolate herself from the inhibiting pheromones of the reigning Queen, she can mature into a Queen herself. Furthermore, a princess can jump start the process by consuming the Crown Jewels of a dead Queen.
* The Zerg from ''[[
** The Queens do rule over their own private swarm of creatures that they make use of to perform their ingame abilities.
** In the [[Star Craft 2|sequel]], Queens have been re-purposed as hive-tenders and also have the ability to spawn larvae, but only at a hive.
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** In fact, {{spoiler|if you save the queen in the first game, there's an asari you meet in the second game who mentions that the rachni helped repair her starship, and if you save the queen again in the third game, she'll aid you in the war effort against the Reapers.}}
** The Collectors are another race of Bee People, quite distinct from the Rachni. They show up in the second game, but they are mentioned in the first game as well. They release swarms of bugs to sting and immobilize their victims, who they "collect." {{spoiler|The [[Precursors|Protheans]] they were created from were far less insect-like, though.}}
* Q-Bee
* The second ''[[Turok (series)|Turok]]'' game had a species of insectile humanoids called "Mantids" (because the main caste look like humanoid mantises) with this trope. Hunting down the pupating Queens is part of your mission for the level, and the boss is the actual Queen herself.
* The Bixies of ''[[EverQuest]]'' fit perfectly into this Trope.
* The Aparoids of ''[[Star Fox Assault]]'' pretty much fit this trope to a tee. They are a species with not just a collective mind, but a collective existence, all ruled over by a queen. The titular team of heroes take advantage of this to beat them by {{spoiler|injecting a virus into the Aparoid Queen, which sends it out to every other Aparoid and destroys them.}}
* A rather literal example comes from ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'': The Guy Made of Bees, who was once an ordinary beekeeper before he gave himself up to the bees, and is now a single creature with a literal [[Hive Mind]]. His [[Catch Phrase]] is ''"We are Bees. We hate you."''
* {{spoiler|The Darkspawn
* The Yanme'e (Drones) from Halo. They are insectoid, and [[All There in the Manual|live in a eusocial society on their homeworld]]
* ''[[Monster Girl Quest]]'' has Bee Girls and Ant Girls. Like all monsters in the setting, they're all-female and need human men to reproduce. The Queens are the only ones who are fertile and possess free will, with the sterile workers behaving like robots.
* ''[[MSF High]]'': The Legion also fit in this, as they are a caste system. In a subversion, their caste is more of a meritocracy. People are granted abilities to do what they are good at, and people can have multiple castes. (Princesses and Queens, in fact, have the abilities of all castes.)▼
* In twokinds, eastern basitins are similar because they have a very rigid class system,gender segregation, an unusual culture(they dial the nudity taboo up to 11), and a biological compulsion to obey orders, but they lack the hive mind aspect.▼
* Averted in ''[[Dreamwalk Journal]]'' and its sequels. The honeybees of Cyeatea have queens and live in hives (well, basically that's just their word for cities), but like all Cyeateans they reproduce like mammals, have a roughly equal balance of sexes, and are not divided by caste or function. (Also, unlike Earth bees, both males and females produce honey.)▼
== Web Original ==▼
* The artist [http://dimespin.deviantart.com/ dimespin's] work in progress [http://shiroryu927.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d1mspay Amber Rust] features Bee People in the most literal sense of the word.▼
== Western Animation ==
* The Irken race from ''[[Invader Zim]]''. (Not a schoolbook example, but does have the bug-like appearance and the mass-produced drones and the hive-like social hierarchy.)
** That's actually a pretty apt comparison: an innumerable volume of workers who serve a [[Large and In Charge|larger leader]], the Tallests, who are essentially <s> queen</s> [[Insect Gender Bender|king]] bees.
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* The Kringles of ''[[Santa Claus is Comin' to Town]]'' have a ''very'' suspicious gender (and size) ratio—lots of little bearded male elves and one much larger "elf queen".
==
▲* Weird [[Real Life]] example: the naked mole rat is one of the only mammals to exhibit eusocial behavior (the other one is the Damaraland mole rat). The queens keep the other female rats infertile with no desire to reproduce by having a community restroom chamber filled with her own urine, which contains suppressing hormones.
▲* Some social mammal groups (African Wild Dogs, meerkats) also restrict all breeding privileges to the top female of the group, but only because the boss females chase off any daughter who dares to breed, and/or kill their daughters' litters.
▲* ''[[MSF High]]'': The Legion also fit in this, as they are a caste system. In a subversion, their caste is more of a meritocracy. People are granted abilities to do what they are good at, and people can have multiple castes. (Princesses and Queens, in fact, have the abilities of all castes.)
▲* [[Captain Obvious|Bees.]] Termites have been eusocial for even longer, and have far more complex castes and collective behaviors than ants or bees.
▲* In twokinds, eastern basitins are similar because they have a very rigid class system,gender segregation, an unusual culture(they dial the nudity taboo up to 11), and a biological compulsion to obey orders, but they lack the hive mind aspect.
▲* Averted in ''[[Dreamwalk Journal]]'' and its sequels. The honeybees of Cyeatea have queens and live in hives (well, basically that's just their word for cities), but like all Cyeateans they reproduce like mammals, have a roughly equal balance of sexes, and are not divided by caste or function. (Also, unlike Earth bees, both males and females produce honey.)
▲== Web Original ==
▲* The artist [http://dimespin.deviantart.com/ dimespin's] work in progress [http://shiroryu927.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d1mspay Amber Rust] features Bee People in the most literal sense of the word.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]
[[Category:
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