Hi all,

This not only happens in the cape bee but has been
documented for other bee races too (but cape does it best).

I beleive that during normal egg development, there is a
stage where there are 4 pronuclei (terminology probably
wrong ) of which 3 perish leaving a haploid egg which if
unfertilized will be drone.   In the cape bee, during egg
development, sometimes not all the pronuclei perish leaving
a state where there are 2 in an egg.  These fuse to give a
diploid egg.  Therefor you get an egg developing into a
female Queen or worker without and fertilization of the egg
ever taking place.  There is a genetic term for this which I
cant remember but someone out there may tell us.


I have observed this happening in Virgin Queens induced to
lay by giving CO2, you get lots of drone brood with a very
low frequency of worker.

Regards
Philip Earle