David C. Gilley, USDA - Agricultural Research Service, Tucson, AZ 85719
Nest usurpation is a form of reproductive parasitism that occurs between African honey bees in the Americas and the European subspecies that are traditionally used for apiculture in the region. During nest usurpation, a swarm of African bees invades a European bee nest and replaces the European queen with its own queen. This phenomenon was recently documented in the Southwestern United States for the first time (Schneider S. S. et al. 2004. Insectes Sociaux 51: 359-364) and may help to explain the loss of European genes and behaviors in the American honey bee population. I studied for two seasons the behavior of usurpation swarms in our Southern Arizona apiary and report my findings here. Some important findings are: 1) usurpation swarms often contain more than one mated queen, and may thus be absconding swarms from several colonies that have merged to increase their chance of survival; 2) usurpation attempts often fail; 3) the host queen is killed by the usurping workers, not by the usurping queen; 4) the usurping queen is protected from host workers by a tight cluster of usurping workers for up to four days following her entry into the host nest. These observations not only advance our understanding of an unusual case of intra-specific reproductive parasitism, but may also help us determine how to prevent Africanization of managed colonies by nest usurpation.
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