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

Worker honeybees, Apis mellifera, police each other’s reproduction by killing worker-laid eggs. Previous experiments demonstrated that worker policing is effective, killing most (∼98%) worker-laid eggs. However, many queen-laid eggs were also killed (∼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 2 days of the 3-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 3 days. Worker policing in the honeybee 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.

工蜂（西方蜜蜂，Apis mellifera）会通过清除工蜂产下的卵来监管彼此的繁殖行为。既往实验表明，工蜂监管成效显著，可清除约98%的工蜂所产卵子。但与此同时，约50%的蜂王所产卵子也被误杀，这提示有效的监管或许伴随着较高的成本。在既往的相关实验中，研究人员使用镊子将卵子转移至测试巢房，且这些测试巢房大多隶属于无亲缘关系的辨识蜂群。本研究同时检测了未经过人工干预的蜂王所产卵子的存活率，以及因误判被清除的卵子可通过蜂王重新产卵得到补救的比例。在卵子3天发育期的前2天，雄蜂巢房中的蜂王卵子仅9.6%被误清除，而工蜂巢房中的该比例为4.1%。当蜂王所产卵子被从巢房中清除后，85%的雄蜂巢房卵子与61%的工蜂巢房卵子可在3天内得到补充替换。蜜蜂的工蜂监管对执行监管的工蜂而言具有较高的演化收益，因为工蜂与蜂王的雄性后代（即兄弟，亲缘系数r=0.25）的亲缘关系，要比与姊妹工蜂的雄性后代（亲缘系数r=0.15）更为亲近。本研究表明，工蜂监管在误杀蜂王卵子方面的成本较低，因为仅极少数蜂王卵子被误杀，且其中大部分可被迅速补充替换。