Asian honeybees parasitize the future dead

Abstract

The queen of a honeybee colony has a reproductive monopoly because her workers' ovaries are normally inactive and any eggs that they do lay are eaten by their fellow workers. But if a colony becomes queenless, the workers start to lay eggs, stop policing and rear a last batch of males before the colony finally dies out. Here we show that workers of the Asian dwarf red honeybee Apis florea from other colonies exploit this interval as an opportunity to move in and lay their own eggs while no policing is in force. Such parasitism of queenless colonies does not occur in the western honeybee A. mellifera and may be facilitated by the accessibility of A. florea nests, which are built out in the open.

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

“…In anarchistic and parasitic Cape honeybees, workers can lay eggs that evade policing, possibly by chemically mimicking queen-laid eggs [27,28]. Workers of the Asian honeybees Apis florea and Apis cerana evade policing by a form of parasitism, laying eggs in unrelated queenless colonies in which worker policing has been switched off so that the colony can rear a last batch of males [29,30]. Bumblebee workers sometimes even go to the extreme measure of killing their mother queen to evade queen policing [31].…”

“…[18]. [26]; the large peripheral cell contains a normal-sized queen (Q); (b) parasitic Cape bee workers, Apis mellifera capensis, lay eggs that are not policed in colonies of their host, Apis mellifera scutellata, resulting in the accumulation of multiple eggs per cell [28]; (c) workers of the dwarf honeybee Apis florea join and lay eggs in unrelated queenless colonies in which worker policing is switched off [29]; (d) to evade queen policing, workers of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris sometimes kill their mother queen [18,31]. Reproduced, with permission, from T. Wenseleers (a), F.L.W.…”

When does cheating pay? Worker reproductive parasitism in honeybees

“…However, in queenless colonies of these species foreign workers make up only 0.5%, 1.8% and 3.2% of the worker populations respectively (Chapman et al, 2010a, Nanork et al, 2007a, Nanork et al, 2005. In Colonies 1 and 2, foreigners accounted for 8.3% and 5.9% of the worker populations ( Figure S1).…”

“…florea (Nanork et al, 2005). However, in queenless colonies of these species foreign workers make up only 0.5%, 1.8% and 3.2% of the worker populations respectively (Chapman et al, 2010a, Nanork et al, 2007a, Nanork et al, 2005.…”

“…Both can therefore be regarded as aberrations to the norm. Similarly, when colonies have lost their queen, the workers do not have that many options left, and parasitising another colony seems the best strategy (Chapman et al, 2010a, Nanork et al, 2007a, Nanork et al, 2005. Thus, apart from the bumblebee Bombus terrestris, where workers from colonies containing a queen parasitise other colonies with their eggs (Birmingham et al, 2004, Lopez-Vaamonde et al, 2004), it appears that worker reproductive parasitism is extremely rare in most bee populations, apart from queenless colonies.…”