How do changelings reproduce?

Changelings are not ponies, cursed or otherwise. As far as their origins go, the closest we get for an explanation is from the comics where they are born of a tree that grew in a primordial swamp formed by the magic run off from a unicorn graveyard. They boil forth from the tree once Starswirl the Bearded accidentally frees them while trying to post a sign warning others to stay away from the tree.

As far as reproduction goes, changelings are an egg laying species, with a female queen, male drones, and female workers. Without a queen, it does seem that the changelings have broken up into family units that consist of a drone and worker pairing, as seen by the example of Ocellus’s family in The Hearth’s Warming Club. It’s likely changelings still lay eggs to reproduce but they have gone from being a Queen dominated hive to a laying worker hive.

This is a phenomenon that can occur in real life with honey bee hives. laying workers begin to show up roughly three weeks after a colony has gone queenless. Pheromones from open brood, and to some extent from the queen herself, suppress the workers’ ovaries. After loss of the queen, the brood is completely capped within nine or ten days, and worker ovaries slowly begin to mature. By the end of three weeks it is possible for some of these workers to begin to lay. Since the loss of pheromone affects all the workers, you may find dozens or even hundreds of these layers. Hives with laying workers are notoriously hard to re-queen, and often the colony will kill a newly introduced queen.

It should be noted that for a bee hive this is a bad thing and can result in the hives collapse, but while Changelings may share some aspects of bees that doesn’t mean that they are exactly the same. For example, in a worker laying hive all of the newly hatched bees become drones because they only have one set of chromosomes, but that does not seem to be the case with Changelings who have both drone and worker larva born after Chrysalis is deposed.

I wish we got more then just one changeling hive in the show

The show never confirmed that Chrysalis was a biological queen, and I find it extremely unlikely that she was one, as laying all the eggs wouldn't have left her any time or energy to rule, partake in invasions, or anything else we see her do. It's much more likely that changelings always mated in pairs and that she was a 'normal' queen. Whether she laid any eggs of her own is open for debate, but it couldn't have been her whole life. She likely separated the eggs from the parents and raised them herself or had them raised by caretakers in order to instill loyalty to her, but she didn't have to be their mother for that.

When a mommy and daddy love each other very much, a changeling comes along and eats their love. Mosquitos bite because female mosquitoes need the protein of blood to lay eggs, and in beehives there’s this stuff called ”royal jelly.”

In the old model of not-sharing, changelings didn’t have enough love/food to properly develop and lay eggs. Queen Chrysalis had to figure out how to best use the available love. Thorax was a scout looking for food sources like Flurry Heart. Beloved public figures had surplus love, but were difficult to replace without someone noticing something “different.” Even if the changeling was not discovered, if they alienated the public they were useless to the hive.

A family was a smaller group, easier to fool. A changeling could replace a “Cadence” and feed on a “Shining Armor.” The queen would decide if the “host” could continue to support the “beloved,” or if they needed to cocoon the host before the illusion wore off. In the event that the ”Shining Armor” could continue to be fooled while also working as a guard, the Queen would then determine if the “couple” was ready to “start a family.” Letting the “beloved“ keep enough love to lay an egg would be more “natural,” but there was a risk of a newborn untrained changeling giving away the deception. It would be easier for the Queen to lay the egg herself in the safety of the hive and send at least a semi-trained ”student” to act as the newborn.

It is worth mentioning that changelings are shapeshifters. They may actually be able to change their genders. Such magic would require significant power, so at a time when they lacked “fuel” they may have shut down non-essential systems to conserve power.

Many of the changelings around were spawned for the Canterlot Wedding/Invasion. A large scale operation, many of the changelings would have been trained to imitate entire family groups of the wedding guests. Although they were never able to “fulfill their destiny,” for lack a better term, they still had the training. The other members of their family were still around, able to be a comfort in a confusing time in all of their lives. Some of the newer changelings had never been on another mission, their cover identity was as much a part of their identity as their “real one.” As a member of a hive, their real backstory may never have been spelled out as their intended role. Holidays were not likely included in this training, “time with family” roughly equates to “time surrounded by fellow changelings with few outsiders to interrupt.” It may have been their first chance to relax, or Queen Chrysalis could use the cover of “visiting relative” to give them new orders. The reformed changelings may be falling into their old role just as phalanx did, but with more freedom to decide what their role means and how to carry it out