>
> >Maybe it's the other way around. Workers are fed longer on a higher
> protein diet and develop specialised tools such as pollen baskets, shaped
> mandibles, a barbed sting that the queen lacks.
My reasoning is that bees must have evolved from an ancestral stock in
which every female was fully fertile. So full fertility and a nonsuicidal
stinger would seem to be the evolutionary default.
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm