Honeybee workers use cues other than egg viability for policing.

Convergent evolution of worker policing by egg eating in the honeybee and common wasp.

Mutual policing, where group members suppress each others' reproduction, is hypothesized to be important in the origin and stabilization of biological complexity. Mutual policing among workers in social insects can reduce within-colony conflict. However, there are few examples. We tested for worker policing in the common wasp Vespula vulgaris. Workers rapidly removed worker-laid eggs but left m...

Killing and replacing queen-laid eggs: low cost of worker policing in the honeybee.

Worker honeybees, Apis mellifera, police each other's reproduction by killing worker-laid eggs. Previous experiments demonstrated that worker policing is effective, killing most (∼98%) worker-laid eggs. However, many queen-laid eggs were also killed (∼50%) suggesting that effective policing may have high costs. In these previous experiments, eggs were transferred using forceps into test cells, ...

Specialization in policing behaviour among workers in the ant Pachycondyla inversa.

Most animal societies are non-clonal and thus subject to conflicts. In social insects, conflict over male production can be resolved by worker policing, i.e. eating of worker-laid eggs (WLE) or aggression towards reproductive workers. All workers in a colony have an interest in policing behaviour being expressed, but there can be asymmetries among workers in performing the actual behaviour. Her...

A Plea for Harm Reduction Policing Involving People Who Use Drugs

Worker reproduction and policing in insect societies: an ESS analysis.

Insect societies are vulnerable to exploitation by workers who reproduce selfishly rather than help to rear the queen's offspring. In most species, however, only a small proportion of the workers reproduce. Here, we develop an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) model to investigate factors that could explain these observed low levels of reproductive exploitation. Two key factors are identifie...