"Even specifying a drone as a male could be challenged, as it is clearly not the same as in most higher species and could quite easily be described as only half a female, it being haploid, not diploid!!"
obviously have to tread carefully around correct use of sex and gender nowadays BUT the phenotypic expression of sex (ie male/female) is entirely independent of chromosomal complement per se and dependent only upon possession of the necessary components of the sex determination mechanism for that species.
so in humans with an XX/XY system all that is necessary for maleness is a single gene on the Y (SRY). likewise in haplo-diploid organisms like the honeybee the drones may only carry half the genetic information BUT since they possess the necessary genotypic attribute ("homozygosity" or rather, lack of heterozygosity, of sex determining gene) they are fully fledged phenotypic males.
DOI: former member of the cambridge research group which had discovered SRY.
