I read somewhere that Laying Worker offspring were defective drones and were unable to mate with
unmated queens. If you have any info on this please let me know.
An entomologist I spoke with told me that laying workers occur naturally as a "last ditch" effort to pass their genetics. No idea as to if the drones are sterile.
Quote from: beek1951 on May 08, 2013, 12:58:21 AM
I read somewhere that Laying Worker offspring were defective drones and were unable to mate with
unmated queens. If you have any info on this please let me know.
Laying workers lay eggs that haploid, it only has a mother, no father, same as a fertile queen. The big difference is that a queen selects a cell that was designed for a drone and lays an unfertilized egg. A laying worker lays eggs in any cell in the hive. The difference is the size of laying worker drones are usually smaller. They are trying to complete with much larger drones. In a drone congregation area that has thousands of drones all competing for the same queens, the smaller workers probably don't win out too often.
Jim
Smaller drones fly faster... yes they are viable and fertile.