Thursday, October 22, 2009
Entry #5: Queen Bees and Workers
The conflict that is between queen and worker bees is that the queen is the one that gets to lay the eggs and pass on her genes and the worker bees do not get to. They way in which it is decided if you are going to be a worker bee or a queen bee, is by what you are fed. If you are fed royal jelly you will become a queen bee. Between the worker bee and the queen bee, the queen bee always ends up winning. There are some worker bees that try to get away with laying their own eggs in the hive but those eggs end up getting removed. Other worker bees in the hive may remove the eggs that were laid by another worker bee. Indication of a different scent or the position of the egg may give it away that the egg laid is not that of the queen bee. There are some exceptions that can occur. Sometimes a worker bee can become a layering worker bee. This bee is a worker bee but it can lay eggs safely in the absence of a proper queen bee, although some other worker bees may also remove them if they are not recognized. A layering bee usually develops a couple of weeks after a queen bee has been absent. When a queen is absent the layering bee may lay eggs, but these eggs only give rise to drones. Besides a layering bee, it is almost always only the queen that may lay eggs and successfully produce offspring.
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The post you have written in fact is true however if you read chapter 10 in Dawkins he talks about the conflict between workers and queens has having to do with, the workers wanting a 3:1 ratio with a bias in favor of females and the queen wants a 1:1 ratio.
ReplyDeleteYour post adresses my practical question, you seem to describe what happens in a bee hive. Dawkins, uses the gene centric view to explain the conflict that arises from genes been in a "workers body unable to reproduce, but influencing their mother to produce a 3:1 ratio of reproductives" or a "queen body reproducing and prefering a 1:1 ratio or reproductives". I understand Dawkins (or the genes) perspectives, but get lost trying to place that into the empirical evidende.
ReplyDeleteYou addressed the issue of the worker bees attempting to lay eggs of their own and the issue that arises form that. In addition to your post and Kelly's comment, worker bees favor a 3:1 females to males ratio due to their relatedness.
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