Data from: Honey bee colonies headed by hyperpolyandrous queens have improved brood rearing efficiency and lower infestation rates of parasitic Varroa mites

A honey bee queen mates on wing with an average of 12 males and stores
their sperm to produce progeny of mixed paternity. The degree of a queen’s
polyandry is positively associated with measures of her colony’s fitness,
and observed distributions of mating number are evolutionary optima
balancing risks of mating flights against benefits to the colony.
Effective mating numbers as high as 40 have been documented, begging the
question of the upper bounds of this behavior that can be expected to
confer colony benefit. In this study we used instrumental insemination to
create three classes of queens with exaggerated range of polyandry– 15,
30, or 60 drones. Colonies headed by queens inseminated with 30 or 60
drones produced more brood per bee and had a lower proportion of samples
positive for Varroa destructor mites than colonies whose queens were
inseminated with 15 drones, suggesting benefits of polyandry at rates
higher than those normally obtaining in nature. Our results are consistent
with two hypotheses that posit conditions that reward such high
expressions of polyandry: (1) a queen may mate with many males in order to
promote beneficial non-additive genetic interactions among subfamilies,
and (2) a queen may mate with many males in order to capture a large
number of rare alleles that regulate resistance to pathogens and parasites
in a breeding population. Our results are unique for identifying the
highest levels of polyandry yet detected that confer colony-level benefit
and for showing a benefit of polyandry in particular toward the parasitic
mite V. destructor.

蜜蜂蜂王平均与12只雄蜂在飞行中交配，并储存它们的精子以产生父系混杂的后代。蜂王的多配性（polyandry）程度与其蜂群适合度指标呈正相关，而观察到的交配数量分布是权衡交配飞行风险与蜂群收益的进化最优解。已有记录显示有效交配数高达40次，这引发了一个问题：该行为能带来蜂群收益的上限究竟是多少？本研究通过人工授精（instrumental insemination）构建了三类具有极端多配性范围的蜂王——分别与15、30或60只雄蜂交配。由与30或60只雄蜂授精的蜂王领导的蜂群，每只蜜蜂产生的幼虫数量更多，且瓦螨（Varroa destructor mites）阳性样本比例低于与15只雄蜂授精的蜂王领导的蜂群，这表明多配性在高于自然常态的水平下仍能带来收益。我们的结果与两个假设一致，这两个假设提出了能奖励如此高程度多配性的条件：（1）蜂王可能与多只雄蜂交配，以促进亚家系间有益的非加性遗传相互作用；（2）蜂王可能与多只雄蜂交配，以获取大量稀有等位基因，这些等位基因在育种群体中调控对病原体和寄生虫的抗性。我们的结果具有独特性，因为它识别出了迄今为止发现的能带来蜂群层面收益的最高多配性水平，并展示了多配性尤其对寄生瓦螨（V. destructor）的益处。