History Main / InsectGenderBender

* While the Tyranids of ''Warhammer40K'' are genderless, the most powerful units are referred to as male (Broodlord, Swarmlord...). Every 'nid is spawned from seldom-seen units called Norn Queens.

* The Colony, Colony Xtreme Force and Swarm are all made of males. Though the official Wrestling/{{Chikara}} position on gender is that there is no difference between males and females in wrestling, [[MonsterMisogyny Xtreme Force detests women]].

* A 1942 cartoon of {{Barney Bear}} had the eponymous hungry bear using a female windup doll to lure the bees away from their hive so he could abscond with their honey ([[TertiarySexualCharacteristics with lipstick, long blond hair, curvy hips and all]]).

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' has a race of insect-like creatures called Dromites. Dromites are genderless with the exception of the Grand Queen and Elected Consort, both of whom are responsible for populating the entire city hive. Also, the Queen and her Consort are elected every year, so how exactly the dromites gain sexual characteristics is unknown. However, it does resemble real life in that neither the Grand Queen or the Elected Consort does much, so ruling is presumably left to the normal dromites.

* Averted in Russian language, where a drone is called "трутень" (truten'), and its second meaning is "The one not doing any physical work", which is essentially what drones are.

* Early beekeepers assumed that queen bees were male, and called them kings, until it was discovered that the "king" was the one laying all the eggs.

* Played with in ''{{Pathfinder}}'' with the [[BeePeople bee-inspired]] [[WomensMysteries thriae]], an [[OneGenderRace all-female species]] of which only the [[HiveCasteSystem queens]] are fertile. (They [[YouCantGoHomeAgain keep]] male volunteers [[GenderEqualsBreed from other species]] in the hive for breeding purposes.)

* Averted in the children's book, "Ned Kelly And the City Of the Bees." The main bee character is female, and the drones do die in the end.

** The latter is actually a recent retcon. He wasn't considered a child when he debuted in ''Chaotix''.

All in all, if you're a human female (and/or beekeeper), it's enough to [[PetPeeveTrope really bug you]] (if you'll pardon the awful {{pun}}).

* Averted in, at least ''[[DonPachi DoDonPachi: DaiFukkatsu]]'' where it is revealed that Hibachi, the eponymous [[InfernalRetaliation Angry]] [[TrueFinalBoss Boss]] [[EverythingsWorseWithBees Bee]], is female. Whether this is true for the previous four games or not is unknown.

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*** Just to add to hilarity, Tarantulas and Waspinator were both mistakingly referred as females in earlier episodes of the french dub.

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* Averted in Russian language, where a drone is called "трутень" (truten'), and its second meaning is "The one not doing any physical work", which is essentially what drones are.

->'''Adam:''' Today we are MEN!
->'''Barry:''' BEE men!

* Averted in ''[[DotAndTheKangaroo Dot and Keeto]],'' where Keeto the mosquito informs a [[IncredibleShrinkingMan shrunken]] Dot that she doesn't have anything to fear from him -- he's a ''male'' mosquito and as such isn't going to try drinking her blood.

* Averted in ''Empire of the Ants'' by Bernard Werber, in which it's clearly explained that drones die after they mate. One of the main characters of the non-human [[TwoLinesNoWaiting part of the story]] is a drone ant, but [[spoiler:he dies before the mating flight]].

** On the other hand, Combee averts the trope heavily:

* In ''MetalGearSolid3'', The Pain refers to the hornets he controls as his brothers, and actually uses the queen to direct them from the backpack her carries.

* In ''MetalGearSolid3'', The Pain refers to the hornets he controls as his brothers. How can you know enough about hornets to command them to make a body double of you but not know what sex they are?
** To be fair, knowing what gender something is is unnecessary in 99.99% cases where you train it to make a body double of you.

* Beautifully averted in ''Clan Apis'' which portrays a bee hive realistically (apart from all the [[AnimalTalk talking]]). The only male bee depicted is perfectly okay with his [[OutWithABang sole purpose in life]]. The other insects have accurate gender roles as well: The Dung Beetle is male, the Praying Mantis is female etc.

** On one hand, Combee is 87.5% male, 95.8333% male if you count each Combee's heads as an individual entities. Work appears to be done by ALL the Combee, as evidenced by the fact that all Combee can only have the ability Honey Gather, which makes Combee randomly collect Honey if it isn't holding an item. This plays the trope straight.

* Honey Nut Cheerios features an anthropomorphic male honeybee as their mascot.