The mechanism of usurpation of European honey bee nests by Africanized
honey bee swarms
David C. Gilley, USDA - Agricultural Research Service, Tucson, AZ 85719

> I studied for two seasons the behavior of usurpation swarms in our Southern Arizona apiary and report my findings.  Some important findings are: 1) usurpation swarms often contain more than one mated queen, and may thus be absconding swarms from several colonies that have merged to increase their chance of survival; 2) usurpation attempts often fail; 3) the host queen is killed by the usurping workers, not by the usurping queen; 4) the usurping queen is protected from host workers by a tight cluster of usurping workers for up to four days following her entry into the host nest.  These observations not only advance our understanding of an unusual case of intra-specific reproductive parasitism, but may also help us determine how to prevent Africanization of managed colonies by nest usurpation.

> Nest usurpation is a form of reproductive parasitism that occurs between African honey bees in the Americas and the European subspecies that are traditionally used for apiculture in the region.  During nest usurpation, a swarm of African bees invades a European bee nest and replaces the European queen with its own queen.

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