Western Honey Bee
Overview
The Western Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) is a species of bees that live in the Western Hemisphere. It is known for its colonies' production of honey. Drones are the male bees of the colony. Since they do not have ovipositors, they also do not have stingers. Drone honey bees do not forage for nectar or pollen. In some species, they are suspected of playing a contributing role in the temperature regulation of the hive. The primary purpose of a drone bee is to fertilize a new queen. Multiple drones will mate with any given queen in flight, and each will die immediately after mating; the process of insemination requires a lethally convulsive effort. Drone honey bees are haploid (having single, unpaired chromosomes) in their genetic structure and are descended only from their mother, the queen. They truly do not have a father. In essence, drones are the equivalent of flying gametes.
Skeletal System
Western Honey Bees, like all insects and arthropods, including the Blue Crab and Death stalker, have their skeletons on the outside called an exoskeleton, with the muscles attached to the inside. The exoskeleton is made up of two parts, the epidermis and the cuticle.The epidermis is a single layer of living cells forming a complete sheet over the whole body and covering the internal organs. The epidermis also secretes a non living material which forms the hard, resistant outer covering of the insect which is the cuticle. The structure of the cuticle is built from chitin, into which a protein called sclerotin is injected. The cuticle is covered with a thin coating called the epicuticle, to make it waterproof and scratch resistant. This dead layer or cuticle means that if an insect wishes to grow the old cuticle needs to be shed or moulted and a new one produced. This process only occurs in a honey bee during the larval and pupal stages.