For some reason, I've been under the impression that the inheritance of defensive behavior is influenced from the drone side.  Now I'm wondering where it was that I picked this up?  Can anyone help me find evidence of this, or was it from one of my dreams where I wake up trying to explain stuff to myself?  I've searched the archives and made somewhat of a search of the literature (much of which is not available to me).   For the life of me I can't seem to find an explanation for the genetic mechanism (maybe it was a dream)...    

I have studied a few behavioral assays and I did find "Paternal Effects on the Defensive Behavior of Honeybees", (E. Guzman-Novoa, G. J. Hunt, R. E. Page, et al,  https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esi038)  Here they present evidence of paternal effects of African origin increasing the defensive behavior of hybrid colonies.   They propose an epigenetic imprinting mechanism that possibly promotes the expression of the paternal alleles governing defensiveness but I'm a little shady on one of the big words that come to mind:  "WHY?"  If true, why might it be beneficial for the population, i.e., selected for ? 

Any insights, thoughts, experiences, studies, opinions, rumors on this subject ?

Just curious - thanks,
Greg Butler

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