蜂王 (fēng wáng) literally means 'bee king' but refers specifically to the queen bee—the single fertile female in a honeybee colony responsible for laying all the eggs and producing pheromones that regulate hive behavior. The character 蜂 means 'bee', and 王 means 'king' or 'monarch'; together, they denote the dominant reproductive female, not a male ruler (despite the masculine term 王). This word is used primarily in biology, apiculture (beekeeping), and nature-related discussions.

In Chinese, 蜂王 is a fixed compound noun and never pluralized or modified with measure words like 一只—instead, it’s typically counted with 一隻 (for animals) or used with classifiers like 一隻蜂王 or 一位蜂王 (the latter anthropomorphically, especially in educational or literary contexts). It carries no colloquial or slang connotations and is standard across formal and informal registers when referring to actual bees.