Inhibition of worker mating by queens in a sweat bee, Lasioglossum zephyrum

Abstract

About 18 percent of Lasioglossum zephyrum workers mate in the field. In the laboratory female mating receptivity varied with age and caste: 1) sixty-nine percent of bees less than 3 days old mated when kept isolated from other females, 2) in six-bee colonies all of the queens, but only 7,7 percent of their workers, mated, 3) in queen removal experiments involving 10 colonies, all the replacement queens mated (these same individuals were not receptive to mating as workers), 4) in one colony of 5 bees, consecutive queen removal showed that each of the four bees identified as the queen mated, while none of the remaining workers did so. The results indicate that queen inhibition governs behavior of the workers even outside the nest. The inhibition may involve more than differences in ovarian size. © 1981 Masson.