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Egg position in the cell is a good indicator of a laying worker. A queen bee's abdomen is noticeably longer than a worker, allowing a queen to lay an egg at the bottom of the cell. A queen bee will usually lay an egg centered in the cell. Workers cannot reach the bottom of normal depth cells, and will lay eggs on the sides of the cell or off ...
Usually, eggs are laid only by the queen, but the unmated workers may also lay haploid, male eggs either regularly (e.g. stingless bees) or under special circumstances. An example of non-viable parthenogenesis is common among domesticated honey bees. The queen bee is the only fertile female in the hive; if she dies without the possibility of a ...
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 ...
In many hymenopteran insects such as honeybees, female eggs are produced sexually, using sperm from a drone father, while the production of further drones (males) depends on the queen (and occasionally workers) producing unfertilized eggs. This means that females (workers and queens) are always diploid, while males (drones) are always haploid ...
Diploid males do not survive to adulthood, as the nurse worker bees will cannibalize the diploid males upon hatching. [15] While workers can lay unfertilized eggs that become their sons, haplodiploid sex-determination system increases the individual's fitness due to indirect selection. Since the worker is more related to the queen's daughters ...
Unlike the worker bees, drones do not sting. Honey bee larvae hatch from eggs in three to four days. They are then fed by worker bees and develop through several stages in hexagonal cells made of beeswax. Cells are capped by worker bees when the larva pupates. Queens and drones are larger than workers, so require larger cells to develop.
Worker bees are totipotent and have the ability to lay eggs, and a few workers even have mature oocytes in their ovaries. However, when there is a queen in the colony, the workers do not attempt to lay eggs or develop eggs. They usually do not show aggression towards other workers or the queen, showing no "competition phase."
The worker queen conflict arises over competition to lay eggs in the fixed number of cells in the nest. When the queen produces more eggs, there will be more workers to build more cells, and the workers will be able to lay an egg in the open cells. However the queen lays eggs irregularly throughout the year so the number of cells fluctuates ...