The behaviour of drifted Cape honeybee workers (<i>Apis mellifera capensis</i>): predisposition for social parasitism?

Neumann, Peter; Radloff, Sarah E.; Pirk, Christian Walter Werner; Hepburn, Randall

doi:10.1051/apido:2003048

Cited by 26 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…A possible ultimate explanation for the rejection of our hypothesis is that the acceptance of alien individuals represents a fitness disadvantage for the host colonies. Although fitness consequences for the acceptance of alien individuals have not been studied, some authors have provided experimental evidence that the acceptance of alien individuals incurs intraspecific social parasitism (Neumann and Moritz, 2002;Boomsma et al, 2003;Neumann et al, 2003;Brandt et al, 2005) and parasites (e.g. Howard et al, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nestmate recognition in a neotropical polygynous wasp

et al. 2007

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In social insects, nestmate recognition systems can be dynamic and modulated in response to various kinds of genetic and environmental cues. For example, multiple-queen colonies can possess weak recognition abilities relative to single-queen colonies, due to broader exposure to heritable and environmentally derived nestmate recognition cues. We conducted field experiments to examine nestmate recognition ability in a neotropical polygynous wasp, Polybia paulista. Despite the fact that the effective queen number in P. paulista is the highest ever recorded in polygynous wasps, this species exhibits a well functioning nestmate recognition system, which allows colony entry only to nestmate individuals. Similar to other social Hymenoptera, young wasps express colony specific chemical signatures within several days after emergence. This is the first study to show that the polygynous epiponine wasp is able to distinguish nestmates from non-nestmates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nestmate recognition in a neotropical polygynous wasp

et al. 2007

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“…The numbers were chosen to maximise the amount of interactions and were based on previous results (Elzen et al 2001). The interactions between the 10 beetles and the 20 bees were observed and recorded for 15 min at the beginning of every hour for 4 hours, by screening the box in a grid fashion from the upper left corner to the lower right one to avoid counting the same interaction twice (Neumann et al, 2003). The following interactions were recorded for the bees:…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small Hive Beetles are Facultative Predators of Adult Honey Bees

Pirk

Neumann

2013

J Insect Behav

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Fax: +27(0)123625242Foraging animals can choose to act as predators or not depending on the level of defensiveness of the potential prey. This requires prior evaluation of prey defensiveness, which can be variable, e.g. young insects are usually less able to defend themselves. Here we show that small hive beetles, Aethina tumida, which are scavengers and parasites of honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies, are facultative predators of young adult host workers. Adult female beetles mounted and attacked young workers more often than their older nestmates, indicating that the beetle is assessing the defensiveness of the host and is adjusting its behaviour accordingly.Since adult female beetles need proteins to activate their ovaries, predation on defenceless young alive host workers offers another rewarding food source, which can obviously not be exploited by beetle larvae. In conclusion, adult small hive beetles seem to be able to assess the trade-off between safety and food reward.

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“…In addition to the intracolonial selection among workers (Moritz et al 1996a(Moritz et al , b, 2000Simon et al 2005), foreign workers can also enter the colony, kill the queen, and establish themselves as social parasitic pseudoqueens (Neumann et al 2003;Moritz et al 2003). Often, these colonies eventually collapse because only social parasitic workers that do not participate in the non-reproductive working tasks but only engage in egg-laying are reared (Hillesheim et al 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social parasitism of queens and workers in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis)

Moritz

Lattorff

Crous

et al. 2010

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Workers of a queenless honeybee colony can requeen the colony by raising a new queen from a young worker brood laid by the old queen. If this process fails, the colony becomes hopelessly queenless and workers activate their ovaries to lay eggs themselves. Laying Cape honeybee workers (Apis mellifera capensis) produce female offspring as an additional pathway for requeening. We tested the frequency of successful requeening in ten hopelessly queenless colonies. DNA genotyping revealed that only 8% of all queens reared in hopelessly queenless colonies were the offspring of native laying worker offspring. The vast majority of queens resulted from parasitic takeovers by foreign queens (27%) and invading parasitic workers (19%). This shows that hopelessly queenless colonies typically die due to parasitic takeovers and that the parasitic laying workers are an important life history strategy more frequently used than in providing a native queen to rescue the colony. Parasitism by foreign queens, which might enter colonies alone or accompanied by only a small worker force is much more frequent than previously considered and constitutes an additional life history strategy in Cape honeybees.

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The behaviour of drifted Cape honeybee workers (Apis mellifera capensis): predisposition for social parasitism?

Cited by 26 publications

References 17 publications

Nestmate recognition in a neotropical polygynous wasp

Nestmate recognition in a neotropical polygynous wasp

Small Hive Beetles are Facultative Predators of Adult Honey Bees

Social parasitism of queens and workers in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis)

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