June 14, 2012Simple enough question to answer actually. The urns are the beginning, and there is an entire armory, which David calls a "cargo hold," with thousands of these urns there, all carrying the black oil (I'm just gonna refer to it like it actually is lol).
Now they in turn genetically alter the DNA of their hosts and can lead to the creation of the Xenomorph through impregnation of another host.
Now, to answer the question of the Eggs. The laying of the eggs, and therefore implying a queen, was not originally apart of the Xenomorph's lifescycle in the first ALIEN movie. In a cut scene Ripley finds Dallas and Brett cocooned in to a wall and are being genetically altered in to the eggs. Brett is further along than Dallas in this scene but you can clearly see the petals of the egg forming around Dallas's lower abdomen.
This is also confirmed in the murals in the Ampule Room. In the "Art of Prometheus" you can see them a lot better as there are several images of a Xenomorph holding an opened egg, and at the bottom of the "Crucified" Xenomorph you can see a reference to the egg/hugger/host lifecycle as well.
Hope that helps! lol