Queen Bee

Queen Bee
Quirk Information
Japanese Name	女 (じょ) 王 (おう) 蜂 (ばち)
Rōmaji Name	Joōbachi
Quirk Description
User	Kuin Hachisuka Tamao Oguro Bee☆Pop Kazuho Haneyama
Quirk Type	Emitter
Quirk Range	Long-range
First Appearance
Manga Debut	Chapter 5 (Vigilantes)
Anime Debut	Episode 3 (Vigilantes)

Queen Bee (女 (じょ) 王 (おう) 蜂 (ばち) , Joōbachi^?) is the Quirk used by Kuin Hachisuka, through Tamao Oguro, and Bee☆Pop, through Kazuho Haneyama.

Description

The true form of the Queen Bee.

Queen Bee is a Quirk possessed by a parasitic bee with an extremely bloated abdomen, capable of invading a host's body by burrowing into their eye socket. Once inside, she connects to the host's brain, allowing the parasite to seize control over the host's body and actions. The parasite can also access the host's own Quirk, as Bee☆Pop was able to use Kazuho's Leap after taking possession of her body. In addition to a host, the Quirk comes with a swarm of bees nested behind a medical patch in the host's left eye. The number of bees under the Queen Bee's control is vast, allowing her to dispatch a phalanx capable of covering an entire metropolitan area.

The process of possessing a host seems to destroy the host's left eye, as both Tamao and Kazuho are shown wearing eyepatches after the Queen Bee is removed. The Quirk can control not only the host, but also other individuals through the use of the bee swarm, shown when Kuin manipulates one of her classmates to lure Soga Kugisaki to a secluded location in order to ambush him after he begins investigating her at her school.

After injecting herself with a sample of Teruo's blood, Kuin can use Electric Eel.

Each bee has a special abdomen that serves to transport various substances in small quantities, and their stingers act as syringe delivery systems, which are useful for the injection of drugs or other such contaminants, as well as to subtract samples. Kuin can command her bees to inject her with a sample of an individual's blood to temporarily obtain a second Quirk, which she used to gain access to Teruo Unagisawa's Electric Eel Quirk.

The bees can also function as spies, a tactic Kuin used to observe and take notes on each of the attacks by the Instant Villains. Bee☆Pop's version of the Quirk differs slightly from Kuin's; while she does not directly control every bee in the swarm, which simply follow their instincts, they become hostile once she starts singing, and she can use them to disrupt and hijack electric signals.

A representation of the bees' hive mind.

The Queen Bee is bio-physically connected to each bee of the swarm, and gains insight to whatever experiences or information they glean. While controlling a host, the Queen Bee's personality becomes a fusion of the swarm of parasitic bees and the host's own brain. This is perhaps best shown by Bee☆Pop, who displays Pop☆Step's singing talent and cheerful character, albeit used to cause mass destruction to neighborhoods instead of bringing smiles to people's faces.

When a host under the Queen Bee's control consumes Trigger, their physical abilities, such as strength and speed, are significantly enhanced, and their appearance changes. Both Tamao and Kazuho exhibited darkened skin, but their transformations differed slightly: Tamao developed elongated, claw-like nails, while Kazuho did not, instead displaying the typical blackened tongue.

Kuin's appearance after being enhanced by Trigger.

Despite the power boost, Trigger also weakens the Queen Bee's hold over the host's underlying consciousness. This disruption allowed Tamao's emotions to rise momentarily to the surface and express her feelings towards her father, Knuckleduster. In this state, the bees' mission takes a backseat, allowing more of the host's true personality and emotions to surface, though the Queen Bee still retains overall control.

Another key characteristic of Queen Bee is its strong survival instinct. If the Queen Bee dies, one of the remaining bees can take over as the new queen of the hive. This ability ensures the Quirk can perpetuate itself even if only a single bee survives, though it requires time to regain strength and rebuild the swarm. Queen Bee also seems capable of reaching new levels of strength through rebuilding the hive and taking over a new host, as Bee☆Pop was far stronger and deadlier than Kuin, with the former being able to freely use swarms of highly destructive Bomb Bees, whereas Kuin could only use a single actual one without the risk of destroying her host.

Weaknesses

When a bee is destroyed, the pain recoils on Kuin.

Because Kuin is bio-physically connected to all of her bees, whenever one is injured or destroyed, she experiences the pain herself. This connection is why she prefers to avoid confrontation and flee rather than fight; if she has no choice but to engage in battle, she tries to minimize the offensive use of her bees. In contrast, Bee☆Pop does not appear to share this limitation, as she freely deploys numerous Bomb Bees without showing any signs of distress when they are destroyed.

As a parasitic insect, Kuin's cognitive abilities and reasoning depend entirely on residing within a host. When the host's brain ceases to function, Kuin loses both her capacity to think and control over the swarm, which instinctively disperses from the dying hive. If Kuin's true body is removed from the host, she becomes completely helpless and vulnerable to her enemies.

While the bees controlled by this Quirk are highly dangerous, they are also very fragile and can easily be taken out by large-scale attacks. With his Ignition Quirk, Moyuru Tochi burned down a swarm of Kuin's bees to save Soga, and Endeavor was similarly able to incinerate several of Bee☆Pop's bees using his Hellflame. The swarm is also attracted to pheromones; Knuckleduster used this to his advantage with a pheromone cocktail to lure them towards a makeshift bomb and take them out, while Koichi was able to evade several bees using a pheromone smoke-bomb to distract them.

The Queen Bee's control over the host may be broken if the host is subject to strong emotions. When The Crawler called out to Kazuho during his confrontation with Bee☆Pop, his influence managed to make Kazuho tear up and save her from Bee☆Pop's control.

The recovery process after the Queen Bee has been removed from the host appears to be significant, as Kazuho not only had to deal with the aforementioned missing eye, but also ended up staying in intensive care for at least a year, with Tamao presumably having done the same.

Gallery

Kuin using Queen Bee in the manga.

Usage

Kuin Hachisuka

Kuin's previous host.

Kuin Hachisuka, a parasitic bee capable of embedding herself into a host's body to control them, used her Quirk to attack and take control of Tamao Oguro at some point in the past. After taking over Tamao's body, she returned to the poor girl's home and attacked her mother, leaving her father, Iwao, bewildered.

Since then, she has worked part-time as an agent of All For One's Villain Factory, distributing Trigger on the streets, collecting data from those transformed into Instant Villains after using the drug, and searching among these users for suitable candidates to kidnap and transform into Next-Level Villains. To survive, Kuin would find houses, murder its occupants, and use their corpses as food and shelter for her bees. She would steal their credit cards, living off their money until it ran out, then abandon the house to search for a new one. She also hooked up with unsuspecting businessmen online.

Kuin's bees turn random civilians into Instant Villains, causing chaos.

Kuin primarily used her Quirk to inject small doses of Trigger into innocent people against their will, turning them into Instant Villains. She did this either to achieve specific objectives, such as creating a major distraction to kidnap Teruo, or simply for her own amusement, like when she attempted to sabotage the Marukane Department Store's Naruhata Festival music event just because she wanted to.

During Kuin's battle with Knuckleduster, she uses her Bomb Bees to fend him off. However, Knuckleduster remained unharmed and quickly deduced the true nature of her attack, with only one bee truly packing a punch while the rest were duds. Kuin proceeded to demonstrate her athletic prowess, with agility able to evade each of Knuckleduster's swings, able to leap across and off buildings effortlessly, and quickly speed through the streets.

Kuin loses control of her bees as they leave her host's body.

Once cornered, Kuin injects herself with Trigger using her bees, gaining strength, but also making herself more unstable and vulnerable, causing Tamao to regain control. She uses this method to obtain Teruo's Electric Eel Quirk, by injecting some of Teruo's blood into herself. Frustrated and desperate after failing to eliminate her host's father, Kuin prepares to unleash a full swarm of real Bomb Bees, even at the cost of Tamao's life, intending to abandon her and move on to a new host. But before she can act, Knuckleduster strikes her in the chest with his Taser Knuckle, stopping Tamao's heart and severing Kuin's connection to the swarm, which immediately disperses. He then removes Kuin from Tamao's eye and destroys her and the remaining bees with an explosive, before reviving his daughter using CPR.

Bee☆Pop

The last remaining bee of Kuin's swarm captured by Number 6.

Unbeknownst to Knuckleduster, a single bee survived and managed to escape after his showdown with Kuin. Number 6, another agent of the Villain Factory, manages to catch it in a plastic container, intending to nurture it until it gains enough strength to become a new Queen Bee and rebuild the bee swarm, which he does over the course of about three years. While posing as Rokuro Nomura, Number 6 befriends Kazuho and lures her to the swarm's location, where she is parasitized and becomes the new host for the Queen Bee, resulting in Bee☆Pop's creation.

The Crawler vs. Bee☆Pop.

Bee☆Pop demonstrates her capabilities and new personality by putting on an explosive "performance", which consists of attacking buildings with Bomb Bees and casually singing a remix of the Marukane Department Store's theme while hacking devices to show her live show to as many people as possible. Her horrified and confused friends Miu and Yu try to reason with "Kazuho", but she brushes off their concerns, telling them that she enjoys the destruction she's causing. After The Crawler fails to stop her, she decides to retreat. In the aftermath of the attack, the destruction left by Bee☆Pop is so bad that not only is it compared to Ryuichi Gojiyama's Kaiju attack from three years prior, but Pop☆Step is also declared a villain by the authorities, despite only being a minor and having committed her first offense.

Underneath Bee☆Pop's enthusiasm for her "performances" is an unhealthy obsession with Koichi and a deep desire for him to never forget her. When Bee☆Pop returns with another "performance", she once again uses her Bomb Bees to cause chaos as the Heroes assemble to confront her.

Koichi breaks Bee☆Pop's control over Kazuho.

When The Crawler confronts Bee☆Pop for the second time, she decides that she no longer has any hope left of having a happy future with Koichi, and tries to end her life using her Bomb Bees to ensure that he always remembers his failure to save her. However, Koichi successfully frees Kazuho from the parasite's control, though she is unfortunately shot in the chest by Number 6 with Trigger, causing the Queen Bee and the swarm to self-destruct to erase all evidence of the experiment.

Koichi manages to escape with Kazuho to have the Queen Bee extracted, where he receives assistance from Midnight, who uses her Somnambulist Quirk to put the bee to sleep before taking Kazuho to a hospital. The Queen Bee is later safely removed from Kazuho's eye, kept in a jar by hospital staff, though Kazuho remains in critical condition for several days, until eventually waking up.

Named Ultimate Moves

Bomb Bees (爆弾蜂, Bakudan Hachi?): Using the Queen Bee Quirk, the user can create highly explosive bees that detonate when ordered to. When Kuin uses this Ultimate Move, creating even a single Bomb Bee takes a toll on her, and as such the ones created after the first are simple firecrackers. Bee☆Pop, however, used numerous Bomb Bees without their destruction recoiling on her.

Trivia

• Queen Bee is one of the few known Quirks to be possessed by an animal, along with Nezu's High Specs and the Monster Cat's eponymous Quirk.