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🧬 Avoiding the Inbreeding Trap: Genetic Diversification Lab

A 3D drone congregation area and brood comb showing how the csd sex-determination gene punishes low genetic diversity: too few unrelated drone sources produce diploid drone larvae and a spotty, patchy brood pattern.

Education & Learning Tools3DModerate60 FPS

A virgin queen's mating flight through a drone congregation area, and the brood-comb consequence: how few distinct sex alleles among available drones drive up diploid-drone losses and produce a patchy brood pattern.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Honeybee sex is set by a single csd gene locus. Matings that pair two identical alleles produce diploid drones, which are eaten as larvae — visualised here as dark, empty comb cells that scale directly with how few unrelated drone sources (effective population size, Ne) the queen can draw on.

🎮 How to Use

Drag the diversity slider to change Ne, set how many drones the queen mates with, or pick a drone-source preset. Watch the mating-flight trail lines turn red on a doomed match, and see the brood comb fill in — or gap out — in response.

💡 Did You Know?

Breeders counter this exact trap with drone-flooding apiaries, queen rotation across unrelated lines, instrumental insemination and genetic monitoring — all deliberate ways of keeping Ne high enough to avoid a spotty brood pattern.

⚙ Under the hood

A 3D drone congregation area and brood comb where a queen's mating flight reveals how the csd sex-determination gene punishes low genetic diversity: with few unrelated drone sources, matings produce doomed diploid drones and a visibly patchy brood pattern.

queen-breedinginbreedingeffective-population-sizedrone-congregationgenetic-diversitybee-genetics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install