In a message dated 16/11/2006 17:40:31 GMT Standard Time,  [log in to unmask] 
writes:

<<A percentage of eggs laid by laying workers turns into virgin  queens.

How do these eggs become diploid? Is there any proof laying  workes mate?

regards,
Lennard>>



I think it's a case of meiosis (the process by  which haploid eggs, with one 
set of chromosomes, are produced from diploid  cells, with two, in the 
ovaries) going wrong. In the first stage of  meiosis, the initial cell divides to 
make two diplod cells, which then divide  again, without replicating the DNA, to 
make four haploid cells. If something  goes wrong, and the process 'freezes' 
after the first division, you get two  diploid eggs, which will develop, 
unfertilised, into diploid, that is, female,  adults.
 
    Regards,
 
    Robert Brenchley

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