To Bee He or She: Honeybees use novel sex-setting switch

After more than a decade of searching, an international team of scientists has found the main gene that separates the girls from the boys among honeybees.

WHY HER? The gene that throws the switch to make a honeybee embryo female or male has been found and sequenced. USDA

Called csd, it’s the first sex-determining switch sequenced in an animal in which females typically grow from fertilized eggs and males from unfertilized eggs, according to Robert Page Jr.