Honeybee (Apis cerana) guards do not discriminate between robbers and reproductive parasites

When does cheating pay? Worker reproductive parasitism in honeybees

“…This was explicitly investigated in Chapter 4. Interestingly, while guards were more likely to reject workers from hopelessly queenless colonies, whether a worker from such a colony had active ovaries or not did not affect the guards' decision to accept or reject her (Holmes et al, 2013b). This suggests that, as has been suggested for A. mellifera (Chapman et al, 2009a), guarding evolved primarily as a defence against robbing, wherein workers enter a foreign colony to attempt to steal food resources.…”

“…This suggests that, as has been suggested for A. mellifera (Chapman et al, 2009a), guarding evolved primarily as a defence against robbing, wherein workers enter a foreign colony to attempt to steal food resources. This behaviour has since been co-opted by both A. mellifera and A. cerana as a defence against reproductive parasites; any foreign worker is also a potential parasite and so preventing them from entering protects against both robbing and parasitism (Chapman et al, 2009a, Holmes et al, 2013b.…”

“…Guarding is rarely completely effective at keeping foreign workers from entering the colony (Beekman et al, 2002b, Chapman et al, 2009a, Chapman et al, 2008, Downs and Ratnieks, 2000, Holmes et al, 2013b. Moreover, honeybee workers can also become parasites of their own colonies.…”

“…An investigation into the guarding strategies of these species, if any, would be valuable, as the opennesting bees are considered to be more basal than cavity nesting species (Lo et al, 2010). As it has been hypothesised that guarding originated as a defence against robbing (Chapman et al, 2009a, Holmes et al, 2013b, information as to whether or not this behaviour occurs in open-nesting and more basal species would provide further insight into how guarding behaviour evolved.…”

Nestmate Recognition in Eusocial Insects: The Honeybee as a Model System

“…A. mellifera has two important derived nesting characteristics-preferring to construct its nests in cavities, such as hollow trees, and making nests with multiple combs-that are shared with a similar Asian species, Apis cerana. Studies of nestmate recognition in A. cerana and other Apis species suggest that nestmate recognition is not as strongly expressed in those species as in A. mellifera (Breed et al 2007;Tan et al 2010;Holmes et al 2013).…”