Intergenerational reproductive parasitism in a stingless bee

Insect colonies have been traditionally regarded as closed societies comprised of completely sterile workers ruled over by a single once-mated queen. However, over the past 15 years, microsatellite studies of parentage have revealed that this perception is far from the truth ( Beekman & Oldroyd 2008 ). First, we learned that honey bee queens are far more promiscuous than we had previously imagined ( Estoup et al. 1994 ), with one Apis dorsata queen clocked at over 100 mates ( Wattanachaiyingcharoen et al. 2003 ). Then Oldroyd et al. (1994) reported a honey bee colony from Queensland, where virtually all the males were sons of a single patriline of workers – a clear case of a cheater mutant that promoted intra-colonial reproductive parasitism. Then we learned that both bumble bee colonies ( Lopez-Vaamonde et al. 2004 ) and queenless honey bee colonies ( Nanork et al. 2005, 2007 ) are routinely parasitized by workers from other nests that fly in and lay male-producing eggs that are then reared by the victim colony. There is even evidence that in a thelytokous honey bee population, workers lay female-destined eggs directly into queen cells, thus reincarnating themselves as a queen ( Jordan et al. 2008 ). And let us not forget ants, where microsatellite studies have revealed equally bizarre and totally unexpected phenomena (e.g. Cahan & Keller 2003 ; Pearcy et al. 2004 ; Fournier et al. 2005 ). Now, in this issue, Alves et al. (2009) use microsatellites to provide yet another shocking and completely unexpected revelation about the nefarious goings-on in insect colonies: intergenerational reproductive parasitism by stingless bee workers.