Back to Blog
Drone bee size7/23/2023 ![]() The drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Although heavy bodied, drones have to be able to fly fast enough to catch up with the queen in flight. Their abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. 160, 375-379, Feb 2002ĭrones are characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. Gadaub, Jürgen Beye, Martin The Emergence of Hymenopteran Genetics Genetics (journal), Vol. Breeding and Genetics of Honey Bees USDA Mar 1993 Therefore, in the natural mating process, batches of female offspring will have fathers of different genetic origin. In the natural mating process, a queen mates with multiple drones, which may not come from the same hive. In honey bees, the genetics of offspring can best be controlled by artificially inseminating a queen with drones collected from a single hive, where the drones' mother is known. In thelytoky the second set of chromosomes comes not from sperm, but from one of the three polar bodies during anaphase II of meiosis. As an exception to this rule, laying worker bees in some sub-species of honey bees may also produce diploid (and therefore female) fertile offspring in a process called thelytoky. Since all the sperm cells produced by a particular drone are genetically identical, sisters are more closely related than full sisters of other animals where the sperm is not genetically identical.Ī laying worker bee will exclusively produce unfertilized eggs, which develop into drones. ![]() Female worker bees develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid in origin, which means that the sperm from a father provides a second set of 16 chromosomes for a total of 32 - one set from each parent. Secondly, they serve as a vehicle to mate with a new queen to fertilize her eggs. They convert and extend the queen's single unfertilized egg into about 10 million genetically identical male sperm cells. ![]() The drones have two reproductive functions. There is much debate in the scientific literature about the dynamics and apparent benefit of the combined forms of reproduction in honey bees and other social insects. This process is also called arrhenotokous parthenogenesis or simply arrhenotoky. The result is a haploid egg, with chromosomes having a new combination of alleles at the various loci. The word "meiosis" comes from the Greek meioun, meaning "to make smaller," since it results in a reduction in chromosome number. This division process is also called meiosis. Drones carry only one type of allele because they are haploid (containing only one set of chromosomes from the mother) thus, they are also called hemizygous.ĭuring the queen's egg developing process, a diploid cell with 32 chromosomes divides to generate haploid cells called gametes with 16 chromosomes. All the forms of a gene that might occur at a locus of a chromosome are called alleles. The specific place on a chromosome where particular genes are found is called a locus. The drones that develop, therefore, share a very similar genetic makeup to their mother.Īll chromosomes contain hereditary units called genes. Honey bees are a haplo-diploid species, in which drones have haploid cells and workers and queens have diploid cells. Unfertilized eggs are haploid in origin, which means that they contain only 16 chromosomes from their mother. Drones develop only from unfertilized eggs. Honey bee eggs hatch regardless of whether they are fertilized. ![]() The size of the brood cell may influence the queen's behavior. It is not clearly understood what prompts a honey bee queen to lay an unfertilized egg versus a fertilized egg. Drone genetics See also: Haplodiploid sex-determination system
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |