Discussion on another list,,, Just pondering how leaving a mating sign is in the interest of the drone... I assumed as many do that the mating plug may give some advantage to the drone in hindering subsequent matings, but it appears the opposite may be true. How would leaving a mating sign evolve, if it is not in the interest of the drone? ==== A Game Theoretical Analysis of the Mating Sign Behavior in the Honey bee Source: http://www.uncg.edu/mat/bio-math/preprints/Wi09.pdf "After copulation, drones leave a mating sign in the genital opening of the queen which has been shown to promote additional mating of the queen" ===== Source: Proteomic analyses of male contributions to honey bee sperm storage and mating http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1847503/ "In contrast to many insects (Gillott, 2003) the honey bee mating plug does not seem to negatively affect the success of subsequent mates, and indeed might actually aid this success (Koeniger, 1986)" Best wishes J Waggle *********************************************** 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