Q-Bee is a fighting game character from Darkstalkers. Making her debut in Darkstalkers 3, Q-Bee is a humanoid insect from Makai.
About
She is described as a bee-based monster called a "Soul Bee," born in Makai in an unknown year. Q-Bee and her race lived in the lands of the Dohma family. But during the time when Jedah was dead, her home began to crumble and her race was about to die. She headed toward the Majigen, which Jedah created after his resurrection, to gather souls to satisfy the hunger of the Soul Bees, as well as her own.
The "eyes" on her face aren't actually eyes at all. They're there for no other reason than to make her look more human. The large orb like things seen in her hair are actually her real eyes. This explains why she often leans or droops her head while in battle.
Q-Bee appears as an enemy in Namco ✕ Capcom, as well as a card in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS. The voice of Q-Bee is voice actor Miyuki Matsushita. She makes mostly 'buzzing' or bee-sounds, but she does have a voice.
The Soul Bee Species
In a family of Soul Bees, there are around 50 up to 150 bees. The leader of the family is called Q-Bee. Q-Bee is a title instead of a name. The others are either called P-Bee or just Bee.
A Q-Bee works to raise the next leader of the family Out of the baby bees born, certain bees are born with a honey capsule. An organ that is used to concentrate and accumulate nutrition. This bee is raised to become the next Q-Bee.
Within P-Bees there are male and female individuals in an one to four proportion (one male for every four females). Their physical appearance is almost identical, with the male being slightly smaller. The male exists only to help reproduce. A male's regeneration rate is very low compared to a female. Due to the current evolutionary stage of Soul Bees having a very strong self-reproduction and regeneration system, it is possible to give birth to new Soul Bees without the help of a male. As a consequence, in the near future, male Soul Bees will most likely disappear.
Their sense of touch can catch the smell of food with a range that is said to reach several hundred kilometers.
Their intelligence level is equal to a human baby around 4-5 years old. As such, they are able to carry on simple conversations.
Their appetite is the most important aspect of their behavior. To them, everything that moves besides themselves is food to be caught. Their digestive ability is incredible and their stomach is rarely upset from eating bad food. Because their metabolism is incredibly high, they may die from starvation if not fed within 36 hours.
The names of Q-Bee's attacks, which may look like odd codes (Specials: SxP, C->R, ΔA, RM, OM; Supers: Qj, +B, i²), were taken from "Makai Evil Insect Book", written by Varvle Mattlayer. The names were rewritten, so they sound more comprehensible to humans (albeit not translatable, but deductible by the effect of each one).
Power and Abilities
On top of the standard abilities of the Soul Bee species, Q-bee seems to have some unique powers to her, fitting her status as queen of her hive. Besides flight, she also seems able to morph her body briefly in insectoid like ways, such as growing a stinger out of her elbow to jab someone with or turning her hand into a wicked pincer to slash at her opponent with. She can even turn her fist into a bee hive in which smaller bees will fly out of. She can also produce large amounts of very thick and sticky honey, as seen in one of her special move, which she can use to immobilize her prey with.
Trivia
- During Demitri's Midnight Bliss, Q-bee is transformed into a nurse in a yellow uniform holding a giant syringe.
- When Anakaris' Pharaoh's Curse is performed on Q-bee, she is transformed into a small version of herself wearing a crown. This same sprite is also in her battle intro.
- During Jedah's San=Passare, Q-Bee's abdomen swells until it explodes.
- During Q-Bee's move +B, the opponent will take graphic damage and appear with bee stings on their body.
- Q-Bee was designed by Akiman. The initial concept of this character was a "bee woman" who was a "mutated insect that uses other insects to attack". After Akiman submitted several concept drawings, the idea was further refined and confirmed to be Q-Bee as she is known now.
- Her additional more insect-like arms are described as being hidden under her “chest”.
- There is a plot error/lore inconsistency that specifies at times that the playable Q-Bee is actually multiple individuals of the Soul Bee race that are newly reborn through each egg or a specific Q-Bee that is constantly reborn through multiple eggs. There's also the fact Q-Bees are only meant to be the leaders of their families but the playable character seems to have control over the entire soul bee race.
- In concept art, Q-Bee started out as a singular character that used other bugs to assist her in combat so it is possible that during some point in development they had the idea of making her a singular character that was a unique Q-Bee but wanted to make her similar to Huitzil as a henchman character that comes in multiples.
- Q-Bee transforms in her intro and changes size from a smaller to bigger bee. In her electrocution sprites she is shown to have the miniature version with levers and stilts inside of the bigger version.
- She has a scrapped move where she can summon plants in battle, it is unknown if this was an assist or an ability.
- In some concept art that was only seen in an artbook, she was shown to have multiple different haircuts in her older designs.
Gallery
For more images of this character, see their gallery.