Animal Sex: How Bees Do It

buff-tailed bees mating on a flower — Before the actual deed, bee mating is more of an acrobatic open-air event where a queen bee mingles with gobs of male drones.

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Birds do it. Bees do it. … Most have heard the many eloquent ways of saying "it" while still flitting around the word "sex." But how do bees do it?

Turns out, at least for honeybees, sex is an acrobatic, open-air event. A typical honeybee colony comprises a large queen, 200 or so male drones whose sole purpose is to have sex with the queen, and thousands of small, sterile female worker bees.

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Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.