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

Show simple item record

dc.contributor.author Moritz, Robin F.A.
dc.contributor.author Lattorff, H. Michael G.
dc.contributor.author Crous, Kendall L.
dc.contributor.author Hepburn, H. Randall
dc.date.accessioned 2011-05-03T07:54:06Z
dc.date.available 2011-05-03T07:54:06Z
dc.date.issued 2011-04
dc.description.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 en
dc.description.sponsorship Funding was provided by the DFG(RFAM). en
dc.identifier.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] en
dc.identifier.issn 0340-5443
dc.identifier.issn 1432-0762 (online)
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/16419
dc.language.iso en en
dc.publisher Springer en
dc.rights © Springer-Verlag 2010. The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com en
dc.subject Apis mellifera capensis en
dc.subject Parasitic workers en
dc.subject Parasitic queens en
dc.subject Queen rearing en
dc.subject.lcsh Cape honeybee en
dc.subject.lcsh Bees (Cooperative gatherings) en
dc.subject.lcsh Parasitism en
dc.title Social parasitism of queens and workers in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) en
dc.type Postprint Article en


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record