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

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Authors

Moritz, Robin F.A.
Lattorff, H. Michael G.
Crous, Kendall L.
Hepburn, H. Randall

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer

Abstract

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

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Keywords

Apis mellifera capensis, Parasitic workers, Parasitic queens, Queen rearing

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Citation

Moritz, FA, Lattorff, HMS, Kendall, LC & Hepburn, RH 2011, 'Social parasitism of queens and workers in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis)', Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, vol. 64, no. 4. pp. 735-740. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03766357]