> It’s important to note that it’s the male drones, and not
> workers who are the clones. Drones are a type of clone, because they’re
> produced asexually from unfertilized eggs. Workers are produced sexually
> from fertilized eggs. This is called haplodiploidy, where males only have
> half the chromosomes of females.

I hate to argue with a geneticist but I don't see any bees as being
clones.  Whilst it is true that drones have only half the genes of
females and all of the genes come from the queen, the combination of
genes are unique to each drone.  The way I understand it the queen has 2
of each gene and the drone has a random combination of one from each
pair.  I think an interesting consequence of this is that all of a
drones genes are expressed, even the ones that would have been recessive
in the female.  Some of these recessive genes are lethal so drones with
those genes don't survive. This gives the bees the opportunity of
clearing out the worst of any genes in the local pool.

Steve Rose
North Wales

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