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A non-policing honey bee colony (Apis mellifera capensis)

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 08:49 authored by Madeleine Beekman, Gregory Good, Mike H Allsopp, Sarah Radloff, Chris W Pirk, Francis Ratnieks
In the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis, workers lay female eggs without mating by thelytokous parthenogenesis. As a result, workers are as related to worker-laid eggs as they are to queen-laid eggs and therefore worker policing is expected to be lower, or even absent. This was tested by transferring worker- and queen-laid eggs into three queenright A. m. capensis discriminator colonies and monitoring their removal. Our results show that worker policing is variable in A. m. capensis and that in one colony worker-laid eggs were not removed. This is the first report of a non-policing queenright honey bee colony. DNA microsatellite and morphometric analysis suggests that the racial composition of the three discriminator colonies was different. The variation in policing rates could be explained by differences in degrees of hybridisation between A. m. capensis and A. m. scutellata, although a larger survey is needed to confirm this.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Naturwissenschaften

ISSN

0028-1042

Issue

10

Volume

89

Page range

479-482

Pages

4.0

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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