Drones are haploid and develop from unfertilized eggs. Queens and workers are diploid.
Stingers are ovipositors, and obviously workers have them. (It makes sense if bees and ants evolved from parasitoid wasps.)
There are degrees of eusociality, and workers are only mostly sterile. When they do reproduce, they lay eggs. Queens may suppress this tendency with dominance behaviors, pheromones, and may eat eggs laid by the workers.
For these reasons it makes sense to call the workers female like the queens.
Drones are haploid and develop from unfertilized eggs. Queens and workers are diploid.
Stingers are ovipositors, and obviously workers have them. (It makes sense if bees and ants evolved from parasitoid wasps.)
There are degrees of eusociality, and workers are only mostly sterile. When they do reproduce, they lay eggs. Queens may suppress this tendency with dominance behaviors, pheromones, and may eat eggs laid by the workers.
For these reasons it makes sense to call the workers female like the queens.