Altruistic behavior by egg-laying worker honeybees

Nicholas L. Naeger, Marianne Peso, Naïla Even, Andrew B. Barron*, Gene E. Robinson

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    27 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    If a honeybee (Apis mellifera) colony loses its queen, worker bees develop their ovaries and produce male offspring [1]. Kin selection theory predicts that the degree of altruism in queenless colonies should be reduced because the relatedness of workers to a hivemate's offspring is less in queenless colonies than it is to the daughters of the queen in queenright colonies [2-4]. To explore this hypothesis, we examined the behavior and physiology of queenless egg-laying workers. Queenless bees engaged in both personal reproduction and the social foraging and defense tasks that benefited their colony. Laying workers also had larger brood-food-producing and wax glands, showing metabolic investments in both colony maintenance and personal reproduction. Whereas in queenright colonies there is a very clear age-based pattern of division of labor between workers, in queenless colonies the degree of individual specialization was much reduced. Queenless colonies functioned as a collective of reproductive and behaviorally generalist bees that cooperatively maintained and defended their nest. This social structure is similar to that observed in a number of primitively social bee species [5]. Laying workers therefore show a mix of selfish personal reproduction and altruistic cooperative behavior, and the queenless state reveals previously unrecognized plasticity in honeybee social organization.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1574-1578
    Number of pages5
    JournalCurrent Biology
    Volume23
    Issue number16
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 19 Aug 2013

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