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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Grice on Apis mellifera ♂

===== By J. L. S.

================== WE ARE DISCUSSING drones with Kramer, "Grice on adaptiveness", this blog. Don't miss it!
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4 comments:

  1. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 27, 2010 at 10:02 PM

    From wiki, 'drone':

    "A drones is a male honey bees, i.e. Apis mellifera ♂."

    "A drones develops from an egg that has not been fertilized. Thus, a drone will carry only 1 type of allele because he'll be haploid (i.e. his sperm will contain only one set of chromosomes from his mother). A drone is hemizygous. During the Queen's egg-developing process, 1 diploid cell with 32 chromosomes divides to generate a haploid cell (a gamete) with 16 chromosomes. The result (a haploid egg) has chromosomes having a new combination of alleles at the various loci. This is arrhenotoky, or arrhenotokous parthenogenesis for long. A drone has two reproductive functions. He converts and extends the Queen's SINGLE unfertilized egg into circa 10,000,000 genetically identical ♂ (sperm) cells. But he also serves as a recipient to mate with the Queen to fertilize her eggs. On the other hand, Apis mellifera operaria ♀ will develop from a fertilized egg -- she is thus diploid in origin, i.e. the sperm from a father provides 1 set of 16 chromosomes for a total of 32—one set from each parent. Since all the sperm cells produced by a particular drone are genetically identical, sisters are more closely related than are full sisters of other [pirots] where the sperm is not genetically identical. A laying worker bee will exclusively produce an unfertilized egg, which will develop into a drone (In some sub-species of Apis mellifera, a laying worker bee will also produce diploid (and therefore ♀)fertile offspring (thelytoky, for short). In thelytoky the second set of chromosomes comes not from sperm but from 1 of the 3 polar bodies during Anaphasis II of meiosis. Thus, the genetics of offspring can best be controlled by artificially inseminating a queen with drones collected from a single hive where the drones' mother is known. In the natural mating process, the Queen mates with multiple drones, which may not come from the same hive."

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  2. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 27, 2010 at 10:08 PM

    Further from the wiki:

    "Thus, in the natural mating process, batches of ♀ offspring have fathers of different genetic origin.

    A drones is characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and the queen, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. Their abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. Although heavy bodied, a drone has to be able to fly fast enough to catch up with the queen in flight, to kiss her and stuff."

    "A drones is stingless." (So much for the masculinity symbol symbolising the arrow and the shield).

    "A drone will die off in late fall"

    -- Actually, I had to read that twice. Expecting "autumn", I just read that as "the drone, while screwing the Queen in the air, dies in the fall."

    I thought -- that's _wicked_.

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  3. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 27, 2010 at 10:15 PM

    Further from wiki:

    "The drone dies in late [autumn, then. JLS] and does not reappear in the hive until late spring.

    "A drone's main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen."

    "A drone in a hive does not usually mate with a Virgin Queen of the same hive because they drift from hive to hive."

    "Mating generally takes place in or near drone congregation areas."

    "It is poorly understood how these areas are selected."

    "If a drone mates with his sister, the resultant quean will have a spotty brood pattern, i.e. numerous empty cells on a brood frame."

    "Again, it is not clearly understood whether this is from higher mortality of the larvae, or by removal of these larvae by nurse bees."

    Or both?

    "Several drones mate with a non-virgin queen on her mating flights a very small distance away from the hive where she lies in a mating position in front of the hive."

    "Mating occurs in flight, which accounts for the need of the drones for better vision, which is provided by their large eyes."

    cfr. Grice, "We see with our eyes" as analytic, "Some remarks about the senses", WoW.

    "Should a drone succeed in
    mating it will soon
    die because

    the penis

    and associated abdominal
    tissues are ripped
    from the drone's body
    at sexual intercourse." (Note).

    === More than a weak reason to say, "Screw screw"

    "Honey bee queen breeders
    may breed drones to be used
    for artificial insemination
    or open mating."

    "A quean mating yard must
    have many drones to be successful."

    "In areas with severe winters, all drones are driven out of the hive in the autumn."

    "A colony begins to rear drones
    in spring and drone population
    reaches its peak coinciding with
    the swarm season in late spring and early summer."

    "The life expectancy of a drone is
    about 90 days."

    "A drone never exhibits typical worker bee behaviors such as nectar and pollen gathering, nursing, or hive construction."

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  4. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 27, 2010 at 10:20 PM

    From wiki:

    "Since the worker bee's stinger is a
    modified ovipositor (an egg laying organ),
    the drone is defenseless
    and cannot defend the hive."

    "Although if picked up it
    will sometimes try to
    frighten the disturber
    by swinging its tail".

    "Although a drone is
    highly specialized to mating and
    continuing the propagation of the hive,
    it is not completely without side benefit to the hive."

    "All bees, when they sense the hive's temperature deviating from proper limits, generate heat by shivering, or exhaust heat by moving air with their wings: behaviors which a drone shares with a worker bee."

    "In Apis mellefera, the drone will also, if the nest is disturbed, buzz around the intruder in an attempt to tail.

    "A drone flies in abundance in the early afternoon and he is known to congregate in drone congregation areas [or clubs] a good distance away from the hive."

    References
    Loper. "Honey bee drone flyways and congregation areas, radar observations".
    Journal of the Entomological Society 65: 223–230.

    Winston, The Biology of the Honey Bee. Harvard

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