Data from: Killing and replacing queen-laid eggs: low cost of worker policing in the honey bee

Worker honey bees, Apis mellifera, police each other’s reproduction by killing worker-laid eggs. Previous experiments demonstrated that worker policing is effective, killing most (ca. 98%) worker-laid eggs. However, many queen-laid eggs were also killed (ca. 50%) suggesting that effective policing may have high costs. In these previous experiments eggs were transferred using forceps into test cells, mostly into unrelated discriminator colonies. We measured both the survival of unmanipulated queen-laid eggs and the proportion of removal errors that were rectified by the queen laying a new egg. Across two days of the three day egg stage, only 9.6% of the queen-laid eggs in drone cells and 4.1% in worker cells were removed in error. When queen-laid eggs were removed from cells, 85% from drone cells and 61% from worker cells were replaced within three days. Worker policing in the honey bee has a high benefit to policing workers because workers are more related to the queen’s sons (brothers, r = 0.25) than sister workers’ sons (0.15). This study shows that worker policing also has a low cost in terms of the killing of queen-laid eggs, as only a small proportion of queen-laid eggs are killed most of which are rapidly replaced.

西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）的工蜂会通过灭杀工蜂产卵巢卵的方式，监控群体内的繁殖行为。既往研究显示，工蜂监管（worker policing）行为成效显著，可清除约98%的工蜂产卵巢卵；但同时约50%的蜂王产卵巢卵也会被误杀，这提示高效的工蜂监管可能伴随较高的实施成本。在既往实验中，研究人员通过镊子将卵转移至试验巢房，且多数试验巢房属于无亲缘关系的识别蜂群。本研究同时检测了未经过人工干预的蜂王产卵巢卵的存活率，以及因监管失误被移除的卵能否通过蜂王重新产卵得到弥补。在为期三天的卵期内，选取其中两天的观测数据显示：雄蜂巢房中的蜂王产卵巢卵仅9.6%被错误移除，工蜂巢房中的该比例仅为4.1%。当蜂王产卵巢卵被误移除后，85%的雄蜂巢房与61%的工蜂巢房会在三天内由蜂王重新补产卵。对执行监管的工蜂而言，蜜蜂的工蜂监管行为具有较高的收益：相较于姊妹工蜂的子代（亲缘系数r=0.15），工蜂与蜂王的雄性子代（即兄弟，亲缘系数r=0.25）的亲缘关系更近。本研究表明，工蜂监管在灭杀蜂王产卵巢卵方面的成本较低：仅有极小比例的蜂王产卵巢卵被误杀，且其中多数会被蜂王快速补产。