Graham Law said:

> If Darwin's theory of evolution was sound,

Sound?  You have the Books On Tape edition?  :)

> then how can one explain the phenomenon of the honey bee
> that has evolved to often have the new queen kill her sisters,

Not to appear to start anything even remotely like a general
discussion/argument/debate/food fight over "Darwinism", but
simply to answer the specific question asked...

Most all creatures have a similar hardwired drive to try as hard as
possible to pass on THEIR genes, even over the genes of "relatives".
The book "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins explains this in great detail.
Anything by Dawkins is worth reading.

> Now why has the application of Darwin's evolution theory not
> naturally breed this trait out of the honey bee as the smarter
> plan would be to keep several virgins alive until one is
> successfully mated.

Well, the worker bees DO try to keep several queens "ready" in
swarming scenarios.  They will cluster around a queen cell to both
protect it from a newly-emerged queen, and prevent the queen in the
cell from emerging "too early".

If this were not a successful strategy, each hive would only throw off
a single swarm within each 2 to 3 week period.   Clearly, hives can and
do throw off multiple swarms within this timeframe.


                jim

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