Social parasitism has evolved repeatedly in allodapine bees, with twelve definite origins and probably many more. This is more origins than all other bees and wasps combined. This suggests that there must be some trait of allodapine bees that facilitates the evolution of socially cheating behaviour. Both sympatric and allopatric models for the evolution of social parasitism require that cheating behaviour is present in a social precursor species and that such cheating behaviour can be directed at non-relatives. However there are very few studies that have explicitly looked for such behaviour. In this study I examine the potential for cheating behaviour directed to non-relatives using the allodapine bee Exonerua robusta. Previous studies on E. robusta have revealed the presence of some females within colonies who are not related to their nestmates, and the existence of nest-switching prior to the establishment of winter reproductive hierarchies, but these findings have been largely anecdotal. I use two approaches here: (i) I experimentally investigate the potential for reproductively dominant and subordinate females to enter foreign nests and take up long term residency; and (ii) I use large-scale microsatellite assays to detect the presence of reproductively active females in colonies containing nestmates who are genetically unrelated to them. The allodapine trait of rearing brood in chambers that are not physically sealed means that the brood of solitary nesting females are highly vulnerable to predation, but the presence of additional adult females can reduce this risk substantially. The benefits of admitting foreign females into small colonies with a communal rearing chamber may create the conditions that permit cheating strategies to evolve and persist.