Social regulation of ovary activation in 'anarchistic' honey-bees (Apis mellifera)

Honey-bee (Apis mellifera) colonies exhibit extreme reproductive division o f labour. Workers almost always have inactive ovaries and the queen monopol ises egg laying. Although extremely rare, 'anarchistic' colonies exist in w hich workers produce male offspring despite the presence of the queen. By c omparing the rates of ovary activation in anarchistic and wild-type bees fo stered to host colonies of different genotype (i.e. anarchist and non-anarc hist) and queen status (i.e. queenless and queenright), we investigated the factors involved in inhibiting ovary activation. Fostered anarchist worker s always had a higher level of ovary development than fostered wild-type be es in both anarchist and non-anarchist host colonies. Fostered workers of b oth genotypes had more active ovaries in anarchistic than in wild-type host s. Fostered workers of both strains also had more active ovaries in queenle ss than in queenright hosts. The results suggest that selection for worker reproduction in the anarchistic line has both reduced the effects of brood and queen pheromones on worker ovary inhibition and increased the Likelihoo d that workers of the anarchistic line will develop ovaries compared to wil d-type workers.