Question

A male honeybee has 16 chromosomes whereas its female counterpart has 32 chromosomes. Give one reason.

Answer 1

The number of chromosomes in the honeybee:

1. Honey bees have a sex-determination system known as haplodiploidy.
2. Bees have varying numbers of chromosomes. Queens have 32, 16 of which are given by the queen's eggs and 16 by the drone's sperm.
3. Drones have only the 16 chromosomes that were already in the egg because they are made from unfertilized eggs.
4. Drones are haploid because they only have a set of chromosomes.
5. The female honey bees are formed from fertilized eggs that follow independent assortment and segregation, according to the genetics of honeybees. So there will be a total of 32 chromosomes, with 16 from the queen and 16 from the drone male mentioned above. This goes through fertilization and produces a female.