3 out of 10
Pairs well with a Daiquiri. Loud, yet somehow still weak. Primarily unnecessary.
The Queen Bee retails at about $149. You can buy it from my friends at Peepshow Toys!
I was asked to review the Queen Bee as part of a Woodhull 2017 package (with the Sheets of San Francisco, and a Doxy). I was excited for this new toy, because I heard a lot about it. It was supposed to be an exciting new oscillator (though not the first, as they have claimed). The Queen had a lot of hype behind it going into Woodhull. I expected to acquire it on the second day of the convention, but I received an email letting me know there were some issues and it would ship to my door on the Sunday of the convention. “Not a problem,” I thought. It wasn’t too long of a wait.
To tide me over, I got to see the display model at Woodhull, and I was a little confused. I hadn’t made friends yet, and wandered to they displays in the blogger lounge to take up time. I was looking over the toys and picked up the Queen Bee. I turned it on, and it made this awful racket. I immediately turned it off and wandered away from the table, faking nonchalance, and afraid I had broken the model. I was also confused because one side was supposed to be intense and the other gentle, but one side moved and the other…just didn’t do anything? I said to myself: “It’s okay. The model is probably just being worked on. It’s new. The ones they actually sell are probably really great. Give it a chance.”
When I didn’t receive any update from Hot Octopuss for about three weeks after Woodhull, I sent a follow-up email. They responded, letting me know that I still had to wait. They were getting them ready and would ship out in two weeks or so. I continued to wait through retailers obtaining and selling the Queen Bee. I saw a few bloggers even receive their review toys from those sellers. And then, at the last minute (about two and a half months after the original promised date), when I had almost given up all hope, I got an email saying it had shipped. Two days later, I received the package, and immediately ripped it open.
Well, aside from being a specific shape, that confusing, marketed as “gentle” side still seemed to do absolutely nothing. So I looked at the photos on the website again. That was it. Their design was that it was the back of the toy and you could use it. At one point, while testing this feature, I grabbed my hair brush to compare. I rubbed my hairbrush to my vulva, then the Queen Bee. It felt the same. So one “feature” of the Queen Bee is the equivilant of the back side of a hairbrush. We weren’t off to a good start.
But I grabbed some lube and turned it over anyway, hoping that the main feature of the toy was enough to redeem the manufacture marking a backside of a toy.
I want to be clear about something here. I have known my current roommate for over 5 years. She knows about and completely supports my blog and my sexual solo habits. I excitedly show her all my sex toys, and she is used to hearing some weird noises from my room. The point to all this is that she KNOWS. She UNDERSTANDS. I still turned on the Queen Bee, turned it off and slowly moved away from it like I had broken something.
The Queen Bee is a type of loud that I can’t handle when I’m trying to get off. Not only is it loud, but it’s grating. I feel uncomfortable using it because I feel like I’m breaking it just by turning it on. Usually, when I use toys, someone is home and I’m about to sleep. But when I turn on this toy, my anxiety spikes. Not only can I not get off, but I feel like I can’t sleep afterwards.
So what does the Queen Bee feel like? Kate Sloan described what I now call the “Queen Bee Effect” perfectly (seriously, I was in tears reading that first couple of paragraphs). This toy feels like almost nothing on me. It claims to have deep and rumbling vibrations. Honestly, I’ve been afraid to turn it up at all and find out (the noise could shatter my old-ass windows). But when I hold this toy where I would like it to sit, it minimizes the movement (and thankfully the noise), and I will never get off. It’s a catch 22. Either I hold it feather light to my outer labia and the whole vulva gets a rave (with noise levels included) or I press it in, and I get some weak stimulation…somewhere…maybe?
I have rather chubby outer labia, and my clit is usually buried beneath them, but no matter what I tried, this toy just would not touch my clit. It was like trying to make two magnets with the same pole touch. Either my clit moved at the last minute or the Queen Bee would drop onto the bed and all was lost. All of these vulvacrobatics with a soundtrack of a garbage disposal in the background.
The buttons on the Queen Bee are also a problem. I can’t really use them and the Queen Bee at the same time. They are on the top, so they are accessible, but they can’t be felt, especially with my lubed-up fingers. So I have to pull the Queen Bee up to squint at the buttons, choose a setting that feels better than the last, and then reapply. All of this makes it impossible to use the Queen Bee with any type of dildo. It really just makes me give up. I’ll go back to my wand vibrators and have a better time in the bedroom.
In short, I’m not in love with the Queen Bee at all. It doesn’t provide power, shape or accessibility. And all of this comes at a high decibel cost. For all it’s marketing and hype, this toy falls drastically short of where it should for the steep price $150.
This toy was given to my by Hot Octopuss in exchange for a fair and honest review. You can buy it from my friends at Peepshow Toys!