Monday, Aug. 16, 2010
Honeybees
In honeybee populations, males are a dime a dozen. Thousands vie for a shot to be with a virgin queen, but only a lucky few succeed. For every mating flight a queen bee embarks upon, she has sex with an average of 12 drones. Males take turns mounting the queen during her flight, and each one can mate seven to 10 times. The queen stores the semen from every midair tryst for the rest of her life, using only a few sperm at a time to fertilize her eggs. When the drone finally pulls away, his barbed penis and abdominal tissues are ripped from his body. He dies shortly thereafter — what a buzz kill.