Parthenogenesis is a natural form of asexual reproduction most commonly found in lower organisms and plants. Sometimes known as virgin birth, parthenogenesis involves the growth of an individual without fertilization. Discovered in the 18th century by naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet, parthenogenesis is a progressive evolutionary strategy that some organisms have employed to maintain a colony. Just as there are benefits to organisms using parthenogenesis, such as reproduction without the need for male gametes, there are costs, such as a decrease in genetic variation. In the intricate eusocial organization of bees, there are three social classes: the queen bee, the worker bee. bees and drones. The queen bee, as the name suggests, occupies the top position in the colony. The queen bee lays all the eggs in the colony, being the only bee with a fully developed set of ovaries and having lifelong fertility (Back Yard Beekeepers Association n.d.). After just one mating flight, the queen mates with a pair of male drone bees, storing the sperm to later fertilize some eggs. Eggs that are fertilized develop into worker bees, while eggs that develop without fertilization produce male drone bees. Due to the high maintenance of both the colony and its products, i.e. honey, most of the bees in a hive are worker bees. These worker bees perform a number of different tasks, excluding reproduction, which is reserved only for the queen. Male drones are reserved for mating with the queen bee. After mating, the drone dies due to the thorn of the sexual organ (Back Yard Beekeepers Association n.d.). Scientists have been perplexed as to how this multifaceted organization is maintained but… halfway through the article… and genetic factors play a role in sex determination (Slobodchikoff and Daly 1971). However in some other Hymenoptera, parthenogenesis occurs via thelytoky parthenogenesis. There is a subspecies of honey bee, the Cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis), which is known to exhibit thelytoky, the production of diploid females from unfertilized eggs, eliminating the paternal genome (Heimpel and de Boer 2008). In the case of the Cape honey bee, the queen bee determines whether the eggs are haploid or diploid (Oldroyd et al. 2008). Through telitic parthenogenesis, the Cape queen can produce clones of itself (Oldroyd et al. 2008). Undergoing a different form of parthenogenesis gives Cape bees the advantage of creating males that could mate with other queens (Oldroyd et al. 2008), engaging one individual for reproduction and decreasing genetic loss (Slobodchikoff and Daly 1971).