Worker policing persists in a hopelessly queenless honey bee colony (Apis mellifera)

@article{Chline2003WorkerPP,
  title={Worker policing persists in a hopelessly queenless honey bee colony (Apis mellifera)},
  author={Nicolas Ch{\^a}line and S. J. S. Martin and Francis L. W. Ratnieks},
  journal={Insectes Sociaux},
  year={2003},
  volume={51},
  pages={113-116}
}
SummaryIn queenright colonies of Apis mellifera, worker policing normally eliminates worker-laid eggs thereby preventing worker reproduction. However, in queenless colonies that have failed to rear a replacement queen, worker reproduction is normal. Worker policing is switched off, many workers have active ovaries and lay eggs, and the colony rears a last batch of male brood before dying out. Here we report a colony which, when hopelessly queenless, did not stop policing although a high… 
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13 Citations

Worker reproductive parasitism and drift in the western honeybee Apis mellifera

TLDR
It is shown that the proportion of unrelated (non-natal) workers significantly decreases after an Apis mellifera colony becomes queenless, and the remaining non-natal workers are as likely to have activated ovaries as natal workers, yet they produce more eggs than nnatal workers, resulting in significantly higher reproductive success for non- prenatal workers.

The reproductive dilemmas of queenless red dwarf honeybee (Apis florea) workers

TLDR
Evidence of unequal reproductive success among queenless workers of A. florea is found, including in the two colonies that reared males to pupation and which the authors studied with microsatellites, some subfamilies had much higher proportions of workers with activated ovaries than others.

Do rebel workers in the honeybee Apis mellifera avoid worker policing?

TLDR
Comparing the survival of three classes of eggs, namely, those laid by normal workers, rebel workers, and the queen, shows that in a queenright colony, eggs laid by rebel workers do not avoid policing.

Queenless colonies of the Asian red dwarf honey bee (Apis florea) are infiltrated by workers from other queenless colonies.

TLDR
It is suggested that the inclusive fitness benefits of remaining in the natal colony in the presence of the queen exceed the benefits of direct reproduction in an unrelated queenless colony.

Killing and Replacing Queen-Laid Eggs: Low Cost of Worker Policing in the Honeybee

TLDR
This study shows that worker policing in the honeybee has a low cost in terms of the killing of queen-laid eggs, as only a small proportion of queens’ eggs are killed, most of which are rapidly replaced.

Role of esters in egg removal behaviour in honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies

TLDR
It is found that the egg-laying workers in these colonies were unusual in that they were unable to produce esters, which suggests that esters are providing some contextual information, which affects the egg eating behaviour of the workers.

Several workers lay eggs in the same brood cell in queenless honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies

TLDR
It is shown that the majority of brood cells in queenless colonies contain eggs from multiple mothers, suggesting that the presence of multiple eggs in brood cells arises from a limitation on the number of suitable cells available for oviposition.

The evolution of extreme altruism and inequality in insect societies

TLDR
Phylogenetic analyses show that high relatedness was almost certainly necessary for the origin of eusociality, however, even the highest family levels of kinship are insufficient to cause the extreme inequality seen in e.g. honeybees via ‘voluntary altruism’.

Inter‐ and intracolonial conflicts in societies ofhoney bees and stingless bees

TLDR
This thesis helped clarifying how social insects recognise each other, it provided the first study that did not measure the benefit but the cost of worker policing, and it shed some light on the bizarre behaviour of queen replacement and execution in Melipona.

Primer pheromones in social hymenoptera.

Social insect are profoundly influenced by primer pheromones (PPhs), which are efficient means for maintaining social harmony in the colony. PPhs act by affecting the physiology of the recipients…

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