FYI: Worker policing is any behaviour by workers that reduces reproduction by other nestmate workers . There is good evidence that one mechanism of worker policing in the honey-bee (Apis mellifera) occurs via the eating of eggs. Ratnieks and Visscher showed that almost all worker-laid eggs from queenless colonies survived less than 1 day when transferred to queenright tester colonies. In contrast, more than 50% of queen-laid male eggs survived. Worker-laid eggs treated with extracts obtained from queen Dufour glands had increased survival , strongly suggesting that queens mark their eggs with a pheromone from this gland and that workers discriminate between queen and worker-laid eggs according to the presence or absence of the pheromonal signal. By using genetic markers to determine the percentage of workers' sons in male eggs of different ages and in adult males, Visscher estimated that workers lay 7% of all male eggs. However, almost all of these are policed before hatching and in normal colonies, only 1 adult male in 1000 is a worker's son. Workers do not discriminate between the queen's sons and worker's sons in the larval stage . The proportion of workers with fully activated ovaries in normal queenright colonies is extremely low, approximately 0.01%. from Evolution of worker sterility in honey-bees ( Apis mellifera) by Benjamin P. Oldroyd · Francis L.W. Ratnieks -- Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>