It usually takes a bit of time to assemble this feature every morning, but fortunately reader Ernie Cooper called my attention to a video he’d made a few years ago. It’s a rare one, showing a bumblebee queen mating with a drone, something few of us would ever get to see. The species is Bombus vagans, the half-black bumblebee. Ernie’s notes:
A couple of years ago I posted a YouTube video of a pair of bumble bees mating on the deck in my backyard. The odd thing is that there are now more than 20,000 views of that video. I find it odd that so many people are apparently searching for bee porn! LOL!
As the Bumblebee.org site notes, most queens mate but once, so that all their female offspring are full sisters, sharing three-quarters of their genes (males are haploid, and the genes in every one of their sperm are identical). In normal diploid species like us (these bees are “haplodiploid”), sisters share half of their genes.
Here’s how it works:
The adult male bumblebee (in common with most adult male insects) has only one function in life – that is to mate. Unfortunately it had been estimated that only 1 in 7 males actually achieve a mating. He will fly in a circuit depositing a queen-attracting scent pheromone produced from a gland in his head in suitable places, usually in the morning, and replacing the scent if it rains. Different species have different preferred flying heights for this, and different queen attracting scents. Sometimes the same route is used by the same species year after year although all males die and so the new males have no idea where the males from the previous year made their circuit.
The pheromone is used to scent-mark prominent objects (tree trunks, rocks, posts, etc) on the circuit which is usually a few hundred metres long. The scent of some species can be detected by some humans. Usually they patrol at species specific heights. Bombus lapidarius, terrestris and lucorum males patrol at tree-top height. Bombus sylvestris and hortorum within 1 m of the ground. However this depends on the habitat.Bombus hypnorum does not bother with the hassle of patrolling a circuit and laying down scent. The males just find a suitable nest where the new queens have not yet emerged and they hang around the nest entrance and make a nuisance of themselves until the virgin queens do emerge. Then it is every man for himself.
Why is copulation so long, as the video notes?
The time taken for matings varies widely from 10 minutes to 80 minutes. The sperm is transferred within the first 2 minutes of mating, and the bees are in a rather vulnerable position, so why do they continue for so long? Well after the male passes his sperm into the queen he pumps a sticky mixture into her genital opening. This genital plug takes time to harden, and once hardened can completely or partially block the entry of sperm from other males for up to three days. So even though the two are in a vulnerable position, it is in the interest of the male to hang on to ensure that his genes have a good chance of being passed on to the next generation, and as most males don’t even manage to mate, and those that do usually just mate once, he wants to be sure his genes will be passed on.
One more note: mating is fatal for honeybees, as when they separate from the female, their innards are pulled out by their genitalia, part of which remains stuck to the female. Bumblebees are luckier: males can survive and may mate again.
E.B White: Song of the Queen Bee
New Yorker Magazine 1945
“The breeding of the bee,” says a United States Department
of Agriculture bulletin on artificial insemination, has
always been handicapped by the fact that the queen mates
in the air with whatever drone she encounters.”
When the air is wine and the wind is free
and the morning sits on the lovely lea
and sunlight ripples on every tree
Then love-in-air is the thing for me
I’m a bee,
I’m a ravishing, rollicking, young queen bee,
That’s me.
I wish to state that I think it’s great,
Oh, it’s simply rare in the upper air,
It’s the place to pair
With a bee.
Let old geneticists plot and plan,
They’re stuffy people, to a man;
Let gossips whisper behind their fan.
(Oh, she does?
Buzz, buzz, buzz!)
My nuptial flight is sheer delight;
I’m a giddy girl who likes to swirl,
To fly and soar
And fly some more,
I’m a bee.
And I wish to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
There’s a kind of a wild and glad elation
In the natural way of insemination;
Who thinks that love is a handicap
Is a fuddydud and a common sap,
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
The test tube doesn’t appeal to me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
And I’m here to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
Mares and cows. by calculating,
Improve themselves with loveless mating,
Let groundlings breed in the modern fashion,
I’ll stick to the air and the grand old passion;
I may be small and I’m just a bee
But I won’t have science improving me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
On a day that’s fair with a wind that’s free,
Any old drone is a lad for me.
I’ve no flair for love moderne,
It’s far too studied, far too stern,
I’m just a bee—I’m wild, I’m free,
That’s me.
I can’t afford to be too choosy;
In every queen there’s a touch of floozy,
And it’s simply rare
In the upper air
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
Man is a fool for the latest movement,
He broods and broods on race improvement;
What boots it to improve a bee
If it means the end of ecstasy?
(He ought to be there
On a day that’s fair,
Oh, it’s simply rare.
For a bee.)
Man’s so wise he is growing foolish,
Some of his schemes are downright ghoulish;
He owns a bomb that’ll end creation
And he wants to change the sex relation,
He thinks that love is a handicap,
He’s a fuddydud, he’s a simple sap;
Man is a meddler, man’s a boob,
He looks for love in the depths of a tube,
His restless mind is forever ranging,
He thinks he’s advancing as long as he’s changing,
He cracks the atom, he racks his skull,
Man is meddlesome, man is dull,
Man is busy instead of idle,
Man is alarmingly suicidal,
Me, I am a bee.
I am a bee and I simply love it,
I am a bee and I’m darn glad of it,
I am a bee, I know about love:
You go upstairs, you go above,
You do not pause to dine or sup,
The sky won’t wait —it’s a long trip up;
You rise, you soar, you take the blue,
It’s you and me, kid, me and you,
It’s everything, it’s the nearest drone,
It’s never a thing that you find alone.
I’m a bee,
I’m free.
If any old farmer can keep and hive me,
Then any old drone may catch and wife me;
I’m sorry for creatures who cannot pair
On a gorgeous day in the upper air,
I’m sorry for cows that have to boast
Of affairs they’ve had by parcel post,
I’m sorry for a man with his plots and guile,
His test-tube manner, his test-tube smile;
I’ll multiply and I’ll increase
As I always have—by mere caprice;
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
Love-in-air is the thing for me,
Oh, it’s simply rare
In the beautiful air,
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
Very interesting. I had thought that the males would have larger compound eyes, but it is not obviously so here.
Notice that the females’ stinger is fully extended?
Genital plugs have also been reported in snakes. Are genital plugs widespread throughout the animal world?
“Oh, bee hive!” [/Austin Powers drone; https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Austin_Powers:_The_Spy_Who_Shagged_Me ]
“a bumblebee queen mating with a drone”
And the offspring carry Stinger missiles?