Question

Honeybees produce their young ones only by sexual reproduction. Inspite of this, in a colony of bees we find both haploid and diploid individuals. Name the haploid and diploid individuals in the colony and analyse the reasons behind their formation.

Answer 1

The colony of honey bees has three types of members:

(i) Diploid queen are fertile females,

(ii) Worker bees are sterile females and

(iii) Drones are haploid males.

•  An offspring formed from the union of a sperm and an egg develops as a female (queen or worker), and an unfertilized egg develops as a male (drone) by means of parthenogenesis. This means that the males have half the number of chromosomes than that of a female.