The bee’s gynandromorphy, though, isn’t so easily explained. Though unusual, such remarkable eye mutations are not unheard of: Scientists have been studying eye-color mutants in honeybees since 1953. ( See 10 sweet photos of honeybees.)īecause drones have only one set of chromosomes, when a rare genetic mutation such as yellow eye color occurs, Boyle says, it’s always expressed. “If you think about it for too long, you just wind up in a little bit of a mind pretzel,” says Boyle. As a result, male bees have no fathers or sons, but they do have grandfathers and grandsons. That’s because males are created from unfertilized eggs, which means they only have one set of chromosomes-those of the queen. When a queen and a drone mate, their fertilized eggs only ever generate female bees. This is why one child might have black hair and brown eyes while another sibling with the same parents might be blonde with blue eyes.īut honeybee genetics are a bit different, says Natalie Boyle, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. Humans have paired chromosomes-one set from each parent-the combination of which guides which traits are passed on. “It’s like catching two bolts of lightning in the same bottle.” Grandfathers but no dads “That’s why this is so astounding,” says Tarpy. ( Read more about the rare half-male, half-female cardinal spotted in Pennsylvania.) Not only did the standout bee have a genetic mutation that affects pigmentation in the eyes and likely renders the bee blind-itself a rather rare condition-but the bee also was what’s known as a gynandromorph, an organism that possesses both female and male traits.Įven in widely studied species, gynandromorphy is exceedingly rare, though recent years have turned up eye-catching examples in butterflies and birds, like this cardinal spotted in Erie, Pennsylvania. Tarpy confirmed the beekeeper’s suspicions. Afterward, Zgurzynski decided to get a second opinion and sent a few of the shots to David Tarpy, a honeybee specialist at North Carolina State University. ( Read about how people are working to save honeybees.)įortunately, Zgurzynski was accompanied that day by a photographer named Annie O’Neill, who spent nearly an hour documenting the strange little bee. “I’ve been keeping bees since 1976, and this is the first time I’ve seen anything like it,” says Zgurzynski, who manages around six million bees at his Country Barn Farm just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In fact, they looked like the radar-dish eyes typical of male honeybees, or drones, despite the fact that the rest of the bee-the abdomen, stinger, and wings-were clearly female. When Zgurzynski looked closer, he realized that not only were the bee’s eyes off-color, but they were abnormally large. Whereas all the other honeybees in the hive had normal black eyes, one insect sported a pair of creamy yellow peepers that were impossible to miss.Īnd that wasn’t all. While checking his hives this June, master beekeeper Joseph Zgurzynski discovered something highly unusual.
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