Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: leechmann on March 08, 2014, 10:15:03 pm

Title: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: leechmann on March 08, 2014, 10:15:03 pm

I was giving a intro to beekeeping presentation today, and I was asked a question. How is it genetically possible for an unfertilized egg to produce any offspring? How can a laying worker lay any eggs that hatch and become a drone or any living creature, without being bred? The person that asked the question was a biology teacher. I didn't have a good answer, but I am looking for guidance. 

 Thank You

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: sc-bee on March 09, 2014, 06:53:40 am

Better than I can explain it ..... I think :-D

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/genetic_aspects_queen_production_1.html (http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/genetic_aspects_queen_production_1.html)

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: RHBee on March 09, 2014, 08:10:48 am

Quote from: sc-bee on March 09, 2014, 06:53:40 am

Better than I can explain it ..... I think :-D

Good job. All I ever did was hit my "I Believe" button on that subject.

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: Michael Bush on March 09, 2014, 10:05:22 pm

>I was giving a intro to beekeeping presentation today, and I was asked a question. How is it genetically possible for an unfertilized egg to produce any offspring? How can a laying worker lay any eggs that hatch and become a drone or any living creature, without being bred? The person that asked the question was a biology teacher. I didn't have a good answer, but I am looking for guidance.

Many insects and even some arachnids have similar reproductive models.  In honey bees the sex determination is a particular allele.  In a haploid (unfertilized egg) this always makes a male because there is not another to match with.  The drones have only half of the genetics.  In a diploid organism (such as most animals we know and honey bee workers and queens) there are a pair of genes for every kind of gene.  In other words, if there is a color gene there are two of them and the dominant one is the one that gets expressed.  But when reproduction takes place with a diploid organism, a haploid egg or sperm is created that gets one random set of those genes.  So if there are two color genes and one is different from the other, the egg could get either color, but not both because it gets only one set of genes.  In the case of a diploid organism, such as a honey bee drone, it gets the one and only set (there are not two sets) so all of the sperm from a given drone are identical to that drone.

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: sc-bee on March 09, 2014, 10:24:35 pm

Yea that's what I said  :-D

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: leechmann on March 09, 2014, 10:45:56 pm

Thank You Michael, I was hoping you would weigh in on this one. I actually looked at some stuff you wrote, looking for the answer. So, again, thank you.

Thank you too sc-bee

Title: Re: Queen bee and laying workers bees laying unfertized eggs.
Post by: Michael Bush on March 13, 2014, 07:48:15 am

>In the case of a diploid organism, such as a honey bee drone, it gets the one and only set (there are not two sets) so all of the sperm from a given drone are identical to that drone.

Too early in the morning I guess.  In the case of a HAPLOID organism, such as a honey bee drone...