06/21/2026
Father’s Day is hard for the male honey bee. That’s because they’ve never had a father.
Huh?
They’re called haploids, which means male honey bees (drones) develop from unfertilized eggs and carry only one set of chromosomes. In other words, every male honey bee has a mother, but no dad.
Which makes Father’s Day a little awkward.
Nature really looked at the male honey bee and said, “You know what? We’re gonna skip that whole dad thing.”
Meanwhile, worker bees and queens are diploid, meaning they inherit two sets of chromosomes, one from mom and one from dad. Nice. Normal. Sensible.
Not the drones.
Despite never having had a father themselves, male honey bees still help create the next generation and pass along their genes to future bees. So even in the insect world, fatherhood is complicated.
Anyway, if your family dynamics seem confusing, just remember there’s a bee out there trying to explain to everyone at the barbecue how he has a mother but no father.
