Whose name is linked to the first modern scientific description of the honeybee queen’s role?

For centuries people misunderstood hive organization until careful observation showed that the queen bee is the colony’s main reproductive female. Early naturalists and beekeepers in Europe documented that the colony’s survival depends on the queen’s egg-laying role. This overturned older ideas that the hive was ruled by a male king or by a collective spirit. Later studies of bee biology explained how pheromones and worker interactions maintain colony structure. That work became central to modern apiculture and social insect science.