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Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera |
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| Authors: | Robin F A Moritz H Michael G Lattorff Peter Neumann F Bernhard Kraus Sarah E Radloff H Randall Hepburn |
| Institution: | 1. Institut für Zoologie, Molekulare ?kologie, Martin-Luther-Universit?t Halle-Wittenberg, Hoher Weg 4, 06099, Halle, Saale, Germany 4. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Departamento Entomología Tropical, 30700, Tapachula, Chiapas, México 2. Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa 3. Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa |
| Abstract: | The queen is the dominant female in the honeybee colony, Apis mellifera, and controls reproduction. Queen larvae are selected by the workers and are fed a special diet (royal jelly), which determines caste. Because queens mate with many males a large number of subfamilies coexist in the colony. As a consequence, there is a considerable potential for conflict among the subfamilies over queen rearing. Here we show that honeybee queens are not reared at random but are preferentially reared from rare “royal” subfamilies, which have extremely low frequencies in the colony's worker force but a high frequency in the queens reared. |
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