> one thing to consider is we often say mateing success means multiple males,  but it appears maybe that’s in question also,

No, that is not in question. What they were trying to figure out is if the queen "counts" or in some other way evaluates how many times or how much semen she has acquired. We already knew that one healthy drone could provide enough semen for one queen, but that she jettisons most of it, in order to become mated multiple times. 

The authors were trying to figure out if she controls the influx in any way. They concluded that she doesn't. Instead they propose that: "queens have likely been selected to achieve a mating frequency above a particular minimum threshold." 

Additionally, they state that" "There was a wide range in the number of mates among the queens (8–25 drones), with the average observed mate number being 13.5." 

In a nutshell, she goes out and whatever happens during the time she is out, she settles for that. Being outside the hive is risky of course, but evolution has fine tuned the timing to be adequate to get mated multiple times, in order to create genetic diversity in the sperm population that she retains for the rest of her life.

PLB

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