Queen bee

Queen bee
x = 5, y = 7, rule = B3/S23 o$obo$bobo$bo2bo$bobo$obo$o! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ HEIGHT 600 WIDTH 600 THUMBSIZE 3 ZOOM 36 ]]
View static image
Pattern type	Methuselah
Number of cells	12
Bounding box	7 × 5
MCPS	12
Lifespan	191 generations
Final population	30
L/I	15.9
F/I	2.5
F/L	0.157
L/MCPS	15.9
Discovered by	Robert W. April
Year of discovery	1970
Rules Outer-totalistic rules B3/S23 – B38/S238 # of rules 22 = 4 Isotropic rules B3-k/S23-kr – B2n34cenqwyz5jkqr6-in7c8/S234cekyz5ekr6-ac7c8
Glider synthesis Fewest gliders 3 Uploaded synthesis RLE queenbee_synth.rle
Pattern files Plaintext queenbee.cells RLE queenbee.rle

Queen bee is a somewhat commonly arising pattern that in 15 generations develops into a beehive and a reflected copy of itself. Left alone, after repeating this process another time, it crashes into the first beehive and explodes (splitting into two centuries, which ultimately stabilize into six blocks and two blinkers at generation 191). It was originally found by Robert W. April in 1970 by evolving two parallel lines of length 15 separated by a single empty column. It is simple to stabilize into an oscillator by deleting the beehives as they are formed, as in the well-known queen bee shuttle. The term queen bee refers not just to the phase shown to the right, but also to any of the other phases of the pattern (excluding the beehives it creates) that occur before it explodes.

Generation 21 of queen bee

Turning reaction

One of the simplest reactions involves a queen bee involves colliding it with two gliders that come in from opposite directions in order to turn (reflect) it; this reaction was found by David Bell and was turned into a period 88 oscillator (shown below) on March 21, 1996. The reaction itself turns the queen bee counterclockwise by 90 degrees in 22 generations.

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#C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ HEIGHT 600 WIDTH 600 THUMBSIZE 2 ZOOM 4 GPS 11 AUTOSTART ]]

Period 88 queen bee turning oscillator (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here

x = 10, y = 11, rule = b3/s23 bo8b$2b2o6b$b2o7b2$o9b$obo7b$bobo6b$bo2bo5b$bobo4b2o$obo4b2ob$o8bo! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ HEIGHT 600 WIDTH 600 THUMBSIZE 2 ZOOM 16 ]]

Two-glider turning reaction (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here

Use in conduits

The queen bee is a recognized conduit object, represented by the letter Q.

Formation

o$o$o$b3o$b2o! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 ZOOM 24 GPS 8 ]]

Queen bees often form along with a tub. This can be seen in both the R-pentomino sequence around generation 770 and the p576 R-pentomino hassler (click above to open LifeViewer)

See also

• Gosper glider gun

External links

• Queen bee (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums