Scientists discover a gene in honey bees that solve the mystery over virgin birth

Researchers from University of Sydney have been successful in identifying the single gene that determines how Cape honey bees reproduce without ever having sex. The study was published in Current Biology on Many 7, 2020 which solved the myth created over possibilities of virgin birth.

Expressing happiness over the new discovery, Professor Benjamin Oldroyd of School of Life and Environmental Sciences , said, ''It is extremely exciting. Scientists have been looking for this gene for the last 30 years. Now that we know it’s on chromosome 11, we have solved a mystery.''

He added that sex is a weird way to reproduce and yet it is the most common form of reproduction for animals and plants on the planet and it's a major biological mystery why there is so much sex going on and it doesn’t make evolutionary sense. He further stressed that asexuality is a much more efficient way to reproduce, and every now and then we see a species revert to it.

In the study done on Cape honey bee, found in South Africa it was found that the gene has allowed worker bees to lay eggs that only produce females instead of the normal males that other honey bees do.

As reported by scientists daily, speaking of the nature of these honeybees Professor Oldroyd said, ''Males are mostly useless. But Cape workers can become genetically reincarnated as a female queen and that prospect changes everything.''

 "Instead of being a cooperative society, Cape honey bee colonies are riven with conflict because any worker can be genetically reincarnated as the next queen. When a colony loses its queen the workers fight and compete to be the mother of the next queen," said Professor Oldroyd as per scientist daily.

Highlighting more on the nature of reproduction in Cape honey bees, Professor Oldroyd said, ''The ability to produce daughters asexually, known as ''thelytokous parthenogenesis'', is restricted to a single subspecies inhabiting the Cape region of South Africa, the Cape honey bee or Apis mellifera capensis.''

These traits also lead to a propensity for social parasitism, a behavior where Cape bee workers invade foreign colonies, reproduce and persuade the host colony workers to feed their larvae.

It is also found that every year in South Africa, 10,000 colonies of commercial beehives die because of the social parasite behaviour in Cape honey bees.