The effects of size and reproductive quality on the outcomes of duels between honey bee queens (Apis mellifera L.)

Abstract

Honey bee queens engage in fatal fights during colony reproductive episodes to become the next egg layer of the colony. We investigated if there is an inherent size advantage among competing queens by staging paired duels in artificial fighting arenas. We raised queens of either highor low-reproductive quality and paired queens to maximize the weight difference between them. We found that heavier queens were significantly more likely to survive than lighter queens. Given that heavier queens do not seem to have an advantage in vivo, these results suggest that there may be opposing levels of selection acting on queen duels at the individual and colony levels.

Keywords:

• honey bee queens
• lethal fighting
• reproductive quality
• colonylevel selection
• social insect reproduction