Data from: A quantitative study of worker reproduction in queenright colonies of the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis

Reproduction by workers is rare in honey bee colonies that have an active queen. By not producing their own offspring and preventing other workers from producing theirs, workers are thought to increase their inclusive fitness due to their higher average relatedness towards queen-produced male offspring compared with worker-produced male offspring. But there is one exception. Workers of the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis are able to produce diploid female offspring via thelytokous parthenogenesis and thus produce clones of themselves. As a result, worker reproduction and tolerance towards worker-produced offspring is expected to be more permissive than in arrhenotokous (sub)species where worker offspring are male. Here we quantify the extent to which A. m. capensis workers contribute to reproduction in queenright colonies using microsatellite analyses of pre-emergent brood. We show that workers produced 10.2% of workers and 0.48% of drones. Most of the workers' contribution towards the production of new workers coincided with the colonies producing new queens during reproductive swarming.在拥有活跃蜂王的蜜蜂蜂群中，工蜂自行繁殖的现象极为罕见。工蜂既不会产下自身的后代，还会抑制其他工蜂进行繁殖，这类行为被认为可提升其广义适合度（inclusive fitness）：相较于工蜂所产的雄性后代，工蜂与蜂王产下的雄性后代之间的平均亲缘关系更高。但存在一个例外：开普蜜蜂（Apis mellifera capensis）的工蜂能够通过产雌单性生殖（thelytokous parthenogenesis）产生二倍体雌性后代，进而克隆自身。因此，相较于工蜂后代均为雄性的产雄单性生殖（arrhenotokous）（亚）物种，开普蜜蜂蜂群对工蜂繁殖以及工蜂所产后代的容忍度理应更高。本研究通过对预羽化蜂子开展微卫星（microsatellite）分析，量化了开普蜜蜂工蜂在有王蜂群的繁殖活动中所做出的贡献比例。研究结果显示，工蜂参与产生了10.2%的工蜂个体与0.48%的雄蜂个体。其中，工蜂对新工蜂繁殖的绝大多数贡献，发生在蜂群通过繁殖分蜂培育新蜂王的阶段。