> Diploid males have long been considered a curiosity contradictory to the
haplo-diploid mode of sex determination in the Hymenoptera. In Apis
mellifera, ‘false’ diploid male larvae are eliminated by worker
cannibalism immediately after hatching. A ‘cannibalism substance’
produced by diploid drone larvae to induce worker-assisted suicide has
been hypothesized, but it has never been detected. Diploid drones are
only removed some hours after hatching. Older larvae are evidently not
regarded as ‘false males’ and instead are regularly nursed by the
brood-attending worker bees.

> So diploid males are not erroneous output, but rather they are the
inevitable consequence of Hymenopteran evolution (Page et al., 2002),
only mitigated by a high-mating frequency of the reproducing females
(Ratnieks, 1990; Boomsma and Ratnieks, 1996), as occurs in honey bees
(Palmer and Oldroyd, 2000). The ultimate eugenic effect of diploid drone
removal by the nursing workers is reasonable; the proximate solution of
assisted suicide is not surprising since cannibalism is widespread in
the animal kingdom and is regarded to be an influential agent in the
evolution of social behavior (Elgar and Crespi, 1992).

Characters that differ between diploid and haploid honey bee (Apis
mellifera) drones

http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2005/vol4-4/gmr0105_full_text.htm

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