Rearing and Viability of Diploid Drone Larvae

Abstract

SUMMARY Four queens, giving brood only half of which normally survived, were bred by individual sibling mating. To protect the brood of these queens from bees, pieces of combs containing eggs were put into the incubator, without bees. After the eggs hatched, 707 larvae were grafted into queen cells on royal jelly, and were reared further in the incubator. On the fifth day the sex of the live larvae could be determined: half were female and half male. The viability of the diploid drone larvae was no lower up to this time than that of female larvae. Larvae were reared further, giving both queen and drone pupae and imagines. The larvae from so-called ‘lethal eggs’, which are normally eaten in the hive, are thus viable diploid drones from fertilized eggs. This paper also reports for the first time the rearing of adult drones and of normal queens, beginning from the egg stage, outside the hive without any contact with bees.