Hi João

> I wouldn't choose "clone" to express the genetical relationship
> between queen and drone, because this word can easily lead someone to
> a misunderstanding.

Sorry, wrong choice of word for that part of the relationship, the clone 
aspect is actually the sperm produced by each drone. All the sperm of a 
single drone are identical and are clones that contain all of the 16 
chromosomes, there is no extra material available for crossing over to 
occur.

 > each drone just inherits half of his mother's genes

But in the case of the queen producing the male egg in the first 
instance, crossing over can occur. This does not give rise to as wide a 
range of possibilities as you imply, the crossing over can only occur 
among the alleles that the queen has at her disposal and in the case of 
the bee many linkages occur that cause such alleles to be inherited as 
clusters or sequences which further limits the number of possibilities.

This link may help those of you that have not yet got to grips with 
haplodiploid genetics...

http://members.aol.com/queenb95/principles.html

Another good reference is John Atkinson's 'background to bee breeding'.


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)

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---