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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:31:22 -0500
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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.
This results in a peculiar genetic composition
of the colony, where individuals from "royal" families are extremely
rare in the worker force but very frequent in the newly reared queens.

Because the subfamily composition in the queens is
different from that of the worker larvae, it seems plausible
to assume that those larvae, which were reared to queens,
were particularly attractive to the nurse bees rearing
them. Genetic variance for rearing attractiveness of larvae
has been shown several times in honeybees.

If our model reflects the actual proximate mechanism for
the selection of queen larvae in honeybee colonies, this
would give rise to paternal lineages of royal families,
which indeed are only rarely found in the worker caste.

from "Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera"  Moritz, et al
Naturwissenschaften (2005) 92: 488–491

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