>
>
> Any insights, thoughts, experiences, studies, opinions, rumors on this
> subject ?


Paternal and maternal effects are of great interest.
I'm not clear that this study actually showed a paternal effect, but I'm
willing to entertain the notion.
The authors offer two hypotheses that can be debated:

   1. Genes that make worker bees more likely to sting also may make a
   queen more likely to sting her rivals. Then as the sole queen of the
   colony, her drone progeny would transmit the paternally expressed alleles
   to other colonies.
   2. Defensive traits are beneficial to honeybee colonies in tropical
   environments because they help them reduce predation

I'm not clear that the fighting between sister queens is governed by the
same genes that regulate colony defense in response to disturbance.
I also wonder what the fitness benefit is for Africanized bees, which at
least in North America, may not be exposed to as any more predators needing
stinging than are environmentally-successful European races.

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

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