The single parent bee.

Bees are strange things.

Female bees come from fertilized eggs. Nothing strange there.

But did you know that male bees come from unfertilized eggs? They have only 1 parent - the queen bee and no father. Hence a female bee inherits genes from both mother and father while a male bee inherits only the mother's genes.

They are born to a life of leisure as their sole purpose of life is to mate with a virgin queen in summer. They don't even have to work but just before winter comes, they get kicked out of the hives cos they are not needed.

I'm serious!

Read abt it here, here and here.

*update*

perhaps I should make this more informative. Apparently, the reason for the male bees to have only one parent is so that it can spread the genes of the queen bee. Having only one source of genes, the male bee is a great method for the Queen bee to spread her own genes around. It's like a vessel she's making use of... hmm...