The preferential care of queen larvae is more often shown to supersisters

A female will be, on the average, more closely related to her supersisters
(r = 3/4, sisters sharing a common drone father) than to her own offspring
(r = 1/2). A female may be favored by kin selection to act as a sterile
worker to help produce supersisters as reproductives, potentially passing on
more genetic information than if she had reproduced herself.

This result is not unexpected when one considers the evolutionary advantage
to behavior that may result directly in closer relatives being the reproductives
of the next generation.

There are undoubtedly far more constraints on
relatedness-based preferential care to worker brood. Selection to
ensure a thriving
worker population and an integrated colony should be strong and could
counter selection favoring preferential care of relatives.


-- 
Journal of lnsect Behavior, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1989
Kin Recognition of Worker Brood by Worker Honey Bees, Apis mellifera L.
Katherine C. Noonan  and Steven A. Kolmes

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