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Date: | Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:28:37 +0100 |
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Hi Chris
> The stored sperms each remain separate and don't merge. If the
> queen mated with a dozen drones there will be a dozen groups
> of half-sisters in the hive.
Joe asked the original question in a way that could be interpreted along
gene combination lines. Just for the sake of clarity...
The individual sperm remain genetically true to the drone that issued
them, but the storage within the queen's spermatheca is a mixture,
however it is not a homogeneous mixture, but has granular clumps of
identical sperm. As more and more research is carried out, we keep
revising the size of these clumps downwards, the current thinking is
that the clumps are of the order of a hundred sperm.
This gives rise to the possibility of consecutively laid eggs being of
the same patriline, but also that all patrilines will be present in a hive.
There is no combination or re-combination of genes from different sperm.
All drone eggs laid in the hive will be genetic clones of the queen,
apart from very small numbers (say one in million) that might arise by
laying workers, anarchic workers or thelytokious workers.
Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)
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