HomeEntomology & Insect BehaviourHoney Bee Population Genetics

🧬 Honey Bee Population Genetics

A 3D colony of honey bees whose coat-colour allele frequencies drift, migrate and inbreed generation by generation — watch Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium hold or break down live.

Entomology & Insect Behaviour3DModerate60 FPS
honey-bee-population-genetics-explained-lab ↗ Open standalone

A 3D colony of instanced bees, each carrying two alleles at a single colour locus, whose allele frequency drifts, migrates and inbreeds generation after generation right in front of you.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Every generation resamples the population's alleles the way real finite colonies reproduce, showing genetic drift, migration-driven gene flow and inbreeding-driven deviation from Hardy-Weinberg proportions as separate, tunable forces.

🎮 How to Use

Set colony size, starting allele frequency, migration rate and inbreeding coefficient, then press Run. Watch the bees' colours shift and the allele-frequency trend line drift, spike or stabilise above the hive.

💡 Did You Know?

Small, isolated apiary populations can fix or lose an allele purely by chance within a few dozen generations — the same drift dynamic conservation programmes must fight to keep rare honey bee subspecies genetically distinct.

⚙ Under the hood

An instanced 3D honey bee colony where each bee carries two alleles at a colour locus; run generations forward to watch genetic drift, migration and inbreeding push allele frequencies and genotype ratios away from (or back toward) Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, tracked live on a 3D trend graph above the hive.

population-geneticshardy-weinberggenetic-driftgene-flowinbreedingconservation-genetics

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

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