- Mating is done “on wing”, drones leave a mating sign – remnants of the reproductive tracts of the last 1-2 drones she mated with
- Queen will take multiple flights, mate with multiple drones (average of 12-14)
- Each drone produces about 5 million sperm in 1uL semen (0.5 to 3uL semen produced by drones)
- Queens will store 4-8 million sperm in spermatheca (out of 87-200 million received during mating)
- There does not appear to be any significant sperm precedence/competition
- But, a study suggests there might be some precedence by Africanized drone sperm.