In a message dated 16/11/2006 17:40:31 GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
<<A percentage of eggs laid by laying workers turns into virgin queens.
How do these eggs become diploid? Is there any proof laying workes mate?
regards,
Lennard>>
I think it's a case of meiosis (the process by which haploid eggs, with one
set of chromosomes, are produced from diploid cells, with two, in the
ovaries) going wrong. In the first stage of meiosis, the initial cell divides to
make two diplod cells, which then divide again, without replicating the DNA, to
make four haploid cells. If something goes wrong, and the process 'freezes'
after the first division, you get two diploid eggs, which will develop,
unfertilised, into diploid, that is, female, adults.
Regards,
Robert Brenchley
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