>
> >This discussion seems to forget that evolutionary advantage would be for
> the species, not the individual.


Thank you, Kate--you took the words out of my mouth!

A population can certainly find selective advantage in a behavior that is
detrimental to the individual (such as stinging).

In the case of drones, damn few ever actually inseminate a queen.  But any
behavior that increases the likelihood of their offspring surviving would be
selected for.

In honey bees, there has been a fair amount of research on nepotism, in
order to tell whether the "selfish gene" selects for behaviors in which
sister workers favor related offspring.  We don't find evidence for such in
honey bees.  The level of selection appears to be that of the superorganism,
rather than the individual female or male.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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