The issue of diploid drones was first studied fifty years ago:

Queens bred for two or three generations by brother-sister matings laid fertilized eggs in worker
cells, from which larvae hatched, but only 50% of them survived in the hive.

A new mechanism of sex determination in the honeybee is suggested on the basis of these results:
a series of alleles exists at locus X; heterozygotes result in females, but azygotes and homozygotes in
males. It is therefore proposed that locus X be called the sex-determining locus, and the alleles at this
locus, sex alleles.

DRONE LARVAE FROM FERTILIZED EGGS OF THE HONEYBEE
Jerzy WOYKE Journal of Apicultural Research 2: 19-24.
Received for publication 4th February 1963

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