Post by Omni_Kno'est (@nkang_richard_etima_omni)

Male honey bees, known as drones, have only one purpose in the colony: to mate with a queen.

During the queen's mating flight, she may mate with more than a dozen drones high in the air.

When a drone successfully mates, his reproductive organ, called an endophallus, is forcefully everted into the queen and then torn from his body as he separates.

This injury is fatal. The drone falls to the ground and dies shortly afterward, effectively sacrificing himself to pass on his genes.

The detached endophallus remains temporarily attached to the queen and is sometimes called a "mating sign." Other drones may still mate with the queen during the same flight.

The queen stores sperm from all these males in a special organ called the spermatheca and can use it to fertilize eggs for years without mating again.

A single successful mating flight may provide enough sperm for the queen's entire lifetime.

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