"but doesn't every gene function like
a single component in a complicated electrical circuit"

In genetics be very careful about ever saying "every gene" in any context.  The problem is if you can dream up one example that counters whatever you said every gene does it is only a short time before someone will find such an example in some living thing.  In the current case thelytoky seems to map to one gene region in some bee species.  That still tells me nothing at all about it being simply one gene.  There could easy be, and probably are, other genes needed.  Those others simply are homozygous in some species of bees so do not show when you map.  The work on mellifera showed that lots of queens had the capability of laying occasional eggs that would start to develop and by breeding from such queens the effect could be enhanced.  Not unlike the case of parthenogenesis in turkeys, as was demonstrated clear back in the 1950s.  Neither of those sound at all like single gene effects.  You need to remember that genes have a great variety of functions.  A few genes make a protein.  Even fewer make only RNA.  Lots simply govern how well or how often DNA replication chemicals bind to some local area of the DNA.  Some genes allow other genes to function when one allele is present but prevent those other genes from functioning when another allele is present.  I know of one case (a dramatic feather length mutant in pigeons) where it takes such an enabler gene to make a second enabler gene active so a third gene can express.  If either enabler gene is less than homozygous that third gene will not express at all even if it is homozygous and feather length will be perfectly normal.  Yet, if both enabler genes are present and homozygous the third gene would map as a single gene function and follow Mendel's laws if the population you were breeding happened to be homozygous for the two enablers.  Interestingly in my pigeon example neither of the enablers does a thing to feather length or feather structure.  They only impact feather rotation angle in the skin follicle where if zero would be the normal angle the mutants can rotate clear to 180 degrees in some combinations and some places on the skin.

Dick

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