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What Do Bees Argue About?
A hive full of honey bees busily working away might seem like the epitome of harmony. After all, most of the workers are siblings working together to raise new brothers and sisters. However, even this family has conflicts now and then. Their arguments may actually be similar to the ones you have at the dinner table, but unlike your family feuds, they can be explained, at least partially, with genetics.
You may know that humans have two different sex chromosomes: X and Y. Bees, on the other hand, have no Y. By this genetic quirk, female bees have XX chromosomes, but males have only X. As each male inherits his single X chromosome from his mother, the queen, this makes him technically fatherless. Each female, a either worker or a queen, inherits one X from her mother and one from her father, as humans do. The upshot of this is that mating is actually completely unnecessary to produce males; a female bee can do it all by herself. This genetic arrangement can sometimes lead to different interests and conflicts between the inhabitants of a bee colony.
Treason and intrigue
The problem starts during the queen bee’s nuptial flight. This is when a new queen emerges from the…
