What is a Drone bee?
A drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee drones do not have stingers and do not participate in nectar and pollen gathering. A drone's primary role is to mate with a fertile queen.
Hubert W, Poland
Hubert W, Poland
The drone is a male bee, which main purpose of existence is to fertilize the queen. In times of food abundance (e.g. spring) other bees tolerate drones. But during the periods of lack of food and preparation for hibernation (autumn) the bees kill the drones as useless, throwing them literally out of the hive.
Giannis, Ifigenia,Didem, Perihan, Greece
Giannis, Ifigenia,Didem, Perihan, Greece
What happens in winter?
Drones may live for just a few short weeks, but if they are lucky, they may live up to 4 months. They are thrown out of their colonies by the end of summer, but in any case, by the end of autumn, there will be few or no drone bees around. Catalonia |
Drones are larger than workers, but smaller than queen honey bees. Their eyes are relatively large, and they develop from unfertilized eggs. (The process of fertilization being controlled by the queen honey bee).
Catalonia Drones carry only one type of allete at each chromosomal position, because they are haploid containing only one set of chromosomes from the mother. During the development of eggs within a queen, a diploid cell with 32 chromosomes divides to generate haploid cells called gametes with 16 chromosomes. Marta E. , Catalonia |