Intra- and interspecific brood recognition in pure and mixed-species honeybee colonies,Apis ceranaandA. mellifera

Abstract

W e studied the effects of mixed honeybee colonies of Apis mellifera and Apis cerana on the in- traspecific and interspecific recognition of female brood stages in the honeybees A. cerana and A. mellifera by transferring brood combs between queenright colonies. In the intraspecific tests, significantly more lar- vae were removed inA. cerana than in A. mellifera, whilst significantly fewer eggs and pupae were removed in A. cerana than in A. mellifera. In the interspecific tests, A. cerana colonies removed significantly more larvae and pupae of A. mellifera than the same brood stages of A. cerana were removed by A. mellifera. We show there are highly significant differences in both intraspecific and interspecific brood recognition between A. cerana and A. mellifera and that brood recognition operates with decreasing intensity with in- creasing developmental age within species. This suggests that worker policing in egg removal is a first line of defense against heterospecific social parasites.