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Workers are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee, but in most species will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three ...
Drone bee. A drone is a male bee. Unlike the female worker bee, a drone has no stinger. He does not gather nectar or pollen and cannot feed without assistance from worker bees. His only role is to mate with a maiden queen in nuptial flight.
The queen bee's abdomen is longer than the worker bees surrounding her and also longer than a male bee's. Even so, in a hive of 60,000 to 80,000 honey bees, it is often difficult for beekeepers to find the queen with any speed; for this reason, many queens in non-feral colonies are marked with a light daub of paint on their thorax. [ 13 ]
The euglossine bees, also commonly known as “orchid bees”, are best known for the male bees’ collection and attraction of fragrance produced by orchids and other flowers. The exact role of fragrances in the mating system remains unclear, as they are not observed to use them in an obvious manner to attract females or mark their territory. [18]
Workers, an entirely female caste, mainly forage for food, defend the colony, and tend to the growing larvae. They are usually sterile for most of the colony cycle and do not raise their own young. Unlike queens and workers, which develop from fertilized diploid eggs, drones, or male bees, are born from unfertilized, haploid eggs. Drones leave ...
Male orchid bees in some species gather aromatic compounds from orchids, which is one of the few cases where male bees are effective pollinators. Bees are able to sense the presence of desirable flowers through ultraviolet patterning on flowers, floral odors, [ 76 ] and even electromagnetic fields. [ 77 ]
Female bees have two sets of chromosomes —one set from the queen and another from one of the male bees or drones. Drones have only one set of chromosomes ( haploid ), and are the result of unfertilized eggs, though inbreeding can result in diploid drones.
If a female is found, he will attempt to mate with her either on the surface or at a nearby flower or tree. Other patrollers will sometimes attempt to steal a digging spot that another bee has found. If a bee has already found a female, another patroller bee may separate the male from the female so that it can copulate with the virgin.