Do You Know Honeybees And Humans 🐝 Are Alike?

Honey bees are social creatures just like humans. They also lead a very well sophisticated life with a division of labour. They are hard workers, unlike most humans. Honeybees have a monarchical lifestyle. They follow it so strictly. They are under the Queen (You go girl!). Usually, there is only one Queen bee in a hive. She is so fiercely protected and taken care. She feeds on Royal jelly, which is only meant for her.

Honey bees can be sorted into

• A fertile female bee which is the Queen bee,

• Infertile or sterile female bee - the worker bee,

• Fertile male bee - Drones,

• Sterile male bee - of no use actually!

It's actually apt to say that males(of honey bee species) don't work at all. The Queen bee directs everyone. The worker bees collect nectar, build combs, clean and take care of baby bees(larvae). The Drones are a part of fertilisation. They offer sperms. The sterile males are of no use. They are hindrances as they ruin the sources available for making honey.

Another interesting fact is that Male bees don't have a father and son, while they are capable of having a grandfather and grandson.

To understand this, let's take a look at the chromosomal constitution of honeybees. The Females are diploid (2n) like humans. The Drones are haploid (n), that is they have half the number of chromosomes as present in females. Some males, by chance, become diploid (2n) and so they are sterile.

The Queen produces an egg (n) by meiosis( a type of cell division that reduces chromosomal number). These eggs can directly give rise to male drones without fertilisation. Thus, the birth of the drone didn't involve a father.

The Queen can mate with another drone to produce diploid females. These females turn into Queen or worker bee based on the food consumed.

A drone cannot directly give rise to an offspring. It can only contribute sperm, which takes part in fertilisation, along with the egg of Queen bee to give rise to a female bee. Thus drones cannot have a son.

Like humans, the term virgin is also familiar among bees. Virgin queen is a queen bee that has not mated with adrone. Virgins are more active and intermediate in size between workers and mated queens. Virgin queens are often not recognized as queens by the workers. A virgin queen in her first few hours after birth can be placed into the entrance of any queenless hive and she is easily accepted by the workers, whereas a mated queen is usually seen as a stranger and has a high risk of being killed by the older workers. Just like humans, riots and wars are so familiar among bees. Though bees differ from humans morphologically, they seem to share some characteristics with humans.