Drones do have
> fathers, and can have many half brothers, anyway I am getting one of those
> genetic headaches. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs so their father is
> their grandfather but sometimes workers can also develop from unfertilized
> queens and once in a great while one of these workers can lay eggs.
 
Well, it is true that haploid males (Drones) develop from
unfertilised eggs. However, they are not all their grandfather, but a
maximum of half since homozygous eggs develop as diploid males, not
females, which are usually killed in the cells as larvae and eaten.
Simplistically, approx half will have one the the grandmother
genotypes, but it also depends upon the degree of outbreeding in
the intermittant generation).
The second point is also true in that thelytoky (production of
dipoloid female progeny from unfertilised eggs) can occurr
occasionally in sexual honey bees by fusion of pole cells.
Rob
Robert Butcher,
Evolutionary and Ecological Entomology Unit,
Department of Biological Sciences,
Dundee University,
Dundee, DD1 4HN,
Tayside, Scotland,
UK.
Work Phone:- 01382-344291 (Office), 01382-344756 (Lab).
Fax:- 01382-344864
e-mail:- [log in to unmask]