sperm, but from one of the three polar bodies during anaphase II of meiosis. In honey bees, the genetics of offspring can best be controlled by artificially inseminating (referred to in beekeeping as 'instrumental insemination') a queen with drones collected from a single hive, where the drones' mother is known. In the natural mating process, a queen mates with multiple drones, which may not come from the same hive. Therefore, batches of female offspring have fathers of a completely different genetic origin. Anatomy A drone is characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. His abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. Although heavy bodied, the drone must be able to fly fast enough to accompany the queen in flight. The average flight time for a drone is about 20 minutes. An Apis cerana colony has about 200 drones during high summer peak time. Drones depend on worker bees to feed them. Drones die off or are ejected from the hive by the worker bees in late autumn, dying from exposure and the inability to protect or feed themselves, and do not reappear in the bee hive until late spring. The worker bees evict them as the drones would deplete the hive's resources too quickly if they were allowed to stay. Role The drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Drones in a hive do not usually mate with a virgin queen of the same hive because the queen flies further to a drone congregation area than the drones do. Mating generally takes place in or near drone congregation areas. How these areas are selected is not understood, but they do exist. When a drone mates with a queen of the same hive, the resultant queen will have a spotty brood pattern (numerous empty cells on a brood frame) due to the removal of diploid drone larvae by nurse bees (i.e., a fertilized egg with two identical sex genes will develop into a drone instead of a worker). The worker bees remove the inbred brood and consume it to recycle the protein. Mating occurs in flight, which accounts for drones needing better vision, which is provided by their large eyes. Should a drone succeed in mating, the first