Dee Lusby wrote:
>The queen acquires exact traits from the workers as she is an exact copy, as no queen can be raised except she be born a worker first and then choosen by same to be changed into a queen as they (the workers) construct queen cells.

Comment:
The queen "acquires" no traits from the workers. I have a real problem with this pseudo-biological explanation for what is a highly speculative theory. Science isn't everything, but it also isn't *nothing*. I don't have a college degree in any scientific field but the above goes against what I learned in elementary school.

The queen is not an exact copy of the workers, any more than I am an exact copy of my brother. In fact, in a colony of bees, there may be thousands of sisters with many different fathers. Hardly exact copies. But a queen cannot inherit anything from her sisters, any more than I inherited anything from my sister.

Also, the queen is not "born a worker first". The egg is an undifferentiated female, with the possibility of becoming a worker, a queen or something in between, depending on when it the queen rearing process is initiated.

pb