BCBC would like to thank
Dr. Zachary Huang, Associate Professor of Entomology, Michigan State University for allowing us to republish his honeybee photos and photo descriptions here. Please visit his site at Beetography.com
Special thanks also to
Dr. David Tarpy, Assistant Professor of Entomology at NCSU for allowing us to republish information on bee pests and treatments. You can visit his site here. |
 On a side view you can see better these cells (even though they are worker-sized) are capped as drone cells. One closest to the camera seems to be capped as a worker though, and this is intriguing. May 30, 2003.
 A laying worker colony. When a colony beomes 'hopelessly queenless', workers will eventually develop their ovaries (without the inhibition from the open brood and queen pheromone) and lay eggs. The eggs are all unfertilized so all develop into drones. Such colonies are usually doomed unless a miracle happens (about 1% of time some unfertilized eggs will become diploid through a process called thyletoky, but this process is very common in the cape bees, Apis mellifera capensis). May 30, 2003.
 Many drones are reared in worker cells, making them small drones. Here you see a drone in the center which is about the same length of a worker next to him. May 30, 2003.
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